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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






UNITEB STATES OF AMERICA. 



The 



CHILD IN THE MIDST; 



OR, 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL OF TO-DAY. 




BY W. M. LEFTWICH, Dc^y;'*%^ 

^ SEP. B5 mz., 

"And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the 
midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you. Except ye be con- 
verted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the 
kingdom of heaven."— Matt, xviii. 2, 3. 



Nashville, Tenn.: 
Southern Methodist Publishing House. 

1882. 






"i find these (schools 

spki^^ging up m'heeevee. i go, 

Peehaps God may have a deeper e^jd theeeij!! 

THAN MEN AEE AWAEE OF, WhO KXOVTS CUT 

SOME OF THESE SCHOOLS MAY BECOME 

NUESEEIES FOE CheISTIAXS? " 

— John Wesley, Anno Domini 1774. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, 

By the Book Agent of the Pl'blishing House of the M. E. Church, South, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at AVashington. 



PREFACE. 

THE leading objects of this little book are to set forth 
the religious claims and capabilities of children, and 
to discuss the methods adopted for the development and 
culture of child-life in the Church of God. To do this, 
the theory and practice of the Sunday-school of to-day, 
and the pastoral instruction of children, are discussed in 
the light of many years' experience and the most care- 
ful observations made in the practical work of' a pastor. 
Formulas for conducting children's-meetings, concerts, an- 
niversaries, Bible - readings, Sunday-school conventions. 
Conferences, Christmas and Easter services, etc., are given 
as helps to those wlio need them. 

The work is a labor of love for the children of the 
Church, and a grateful offering to Him who said, ^'Take 
heed that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say 
unto you. That in heaven their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father which is in heaven." 

The Author. 

Nashville, Tenn,, June 28, 1882. 

(5) 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

WE are pleased with this little book. The author has dis- 
cussed the whole subject of the modern Sunday-school in a 
clear, concise, and common sense manner, giving a satisfactory 
statement and illustration of the various topics introduced, and 
furnishing much valuable information, with numerous suggestive 
outlines and models for programmes, anniversary exercises, etc. 
We have not seen anywhere so much important matter connected 
with the theory, organization, and general management of Sunday- 
schools compressed into so small a compass. Such a work has 
long been needed, and often called for. The great end of all true 
Christian work — the salvation of souls— is steadily kept in view 
throughout the book. We would call special attention to the au- 
thor's views on the religious siisceptibilifies of children. We deem 
this a most important suhject, and one that has not received the 
attention its transcendent merits demand. May the blessing of God 
go with this new minister of truth and grace to all the homes and 
Sunday-schools of our people in the land! 

W. G. E. CUNNYNGHAM, 



Nashville, Tenn., July, 1882. 

(6) 



Sunday-school Editor. 



1 



CONTENTS. 



PART OXE. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. What Is a Sunday-school? 9 

II. The Object of the Sunday-school 12 

Iir. Who Should Be in the Sunday-school? 15 

IV. Who Else Should Be in the Sunday-school? IS 

V. Children in the Sunday-school 22 

VI. Children in the Church 25 

VII. Children in the Congregation 29 

VITI. Children in Public Worship 32 

IX. Special Service for Children 35 

X. Preaching to Children 38 

XL The Conversion of Children 43 

XII. The Child in the Midst 49 

PART TWO. 

I. The Pastor's Place in the Sunday-school 53 

II. The Pastor's Ofeice 54 

III. The Pastor's Official Functions 5G 

IV. The Pastor's Duty 58 

V. The Pastor's Work 61 

VI. The Pastor and the Children 65 

VII. Catechumens 68 

VIII. Pastoral Instruction of Children 71 

IX. My Own Plan 75 

X. The Children's Class 82 

XI. The Cooperation of Parents 87 

XII. The Sunday-school and Its Methods 91 

XIII. Sunday-school Literature 95 

(7) 



Contents, 



PART THREE. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. SUNDAT-SCHOOL CONVEXTTONS 101 

II. Sunday-school Conferences 106 

III. Annual Sunday-school Conference Ill 

IV. District Sunday-school Conference 116 

V. Topics for Sunday-school Conferences 122 

VI. The Sunday-school Concert 127 

VII. "Children's Day." 131 

VIII. Bible-reading Service 137 

IX. Bible-reading, Continued 142 

X. Forms for Opening and Closing 147 

XI Children's Service .,. 159 

XII. Christmas Service 171 

XIII. Another Christmas Service 175 

XIV. Easter Sunday and Service 180 



THE CHILD IN THE MIDST. 



PART ONE. 



CHAPTER I. 

What Is a Sunday-school? 

IT is the Clinrch studying tlie word of God. 
The theory that the Sunday-school is "the 
nursery of the Church," and designed for 
children only, with adults to officer and teach 
them, is a relic of the past. It grew up nat- 
urally out of the historic custom of catechising 
children upon the doctrines of Christianity 
observed by the Church long before Wesley's 
day, which Wesley's mother enlarged and util- 
ized for a more intense and practical study of 
the Holy Scriptures, and which, upon the sug- 
gestion of Hannah Ball, Robert Eaikes applied 
so successfully and memorably to the poor, 
neglected, and ignorant children of Gloucester, 
England. In the application and unfolding of 
this original idea, the Sunday-school has long 
been denominated " the nursery of the Church," 
and as such it was intended only for children. 

(9) 



10 The Child in the Midst; 

But the providential growth of the Sunday- 
school in the last days has so enlarged its scope 
and work that it can now be defined only as the 
whole Church, young and old, assembled on 
Sunday, and divided into classes for conven- 
ience, with suitable teachers, all devoutly en- 
gaged in the study of the Holy Scriptures. 
Some have styled it, and not inappropriately, 
''the catechetical and theological institute of 
the Church." The laT\^ of the Church clearly 
authorizes this theory in the following direc- 
tion: "Let Sunday-schools be formed in all 
our congregations where ten persons can be 
collected for that purpose." The General Con- 
ference of 1878 recognized this higher and 
broader meaning by substituting the word 
"persons" for "children," making it possible 
for a Sunday-school to be organized and oper- 
ated under the law of the Church without any 
children at all. 

The theory that the Sunday-school is the 
Church studying the word of God possesses 
many advantages, and may correct many evils. 
Its advantages in part are these: It enlarges 
the scope, and extends the benefits and bless- 
ings of the Sunday-school to the whole Church. 
It makes more general and intense the interests 



Or, The Sundcuj -school of To-day, 11 

of the whole Church in this work, and offers 
a pleasant and profitable school of religious 
instruction to men of the world who may be 
inclined, from whatever cause, to seek relig- 
ious knowledge. Many find Christ in the Sun- 
day-school who might not be led to Christ by 
the pulpit. It helps parents to train their 
children in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord, and at the same time it helps every adult 
to a general and thorough knowledge of the 
Holy Scriptures, and will thus hasten the time 
when "they shall be all taught of God." Let 
this idea of the Sunday-school become general, 
and this theory be put into practice every- 
where, and with the literary helps now at hand 
the Church will soon be redeemed from the 
long-standing reproach of being "wofuUy 
ignorant of the Scriptures," and will hasten her 
divinely-appointed mission to " spread script- 
ural holiness over these lands." 

Among the evils which will be corrected 
by it are these: It will prevent the Sunday- 
school from being practically divorced from 
the Church. It will prevent the larger boys 
and girls from '^graduating" and leaving the 
school. It will prevent the absence of the 
children from the congregation. It will make 



12 The Child in the Midst; 

the Church and Sunday-school one in fact and 
in icork, as they are one in theory. Are not 
these evils, so long and so loudly complained 
of, largely due to the theory that the Sunday- 
school is "the nursery of the Church," and 
intended only for children ? The statement of 
the question suggests its own answer. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Object oe the Sunday-school. 

What is the object of the Sunday-school? 
"To bring children to Christ," is the usual 
answer. But why children only? Why not 
adults also? We must not confine this work 
to children. An intelligent lady consented to 
teach a class of little girls, but she herself was 
not a Christian. The superintendent and 
teachers prayed for her daily for nearly two 
months, when she gave herself to Christ, and 
was happily saved. A gentleman who had not 
attended Church for years dropped into the 
Sunday-school one morning to hear the chil- 
dren sing. Their glad songs recalled his own 
childhood, and awakened tender emotions to 
which he had long been a stranger. He re- 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day. 13 

mainecl to weep, and wlien tlie service was 
turned into a testimony-meeting lie was thor- 
oughly awakened, and bowed before God as a 
penitent, believing with his heart unto right- 
eousness, and with his mouth making confes- 
sion unto salvation. Why not adults also ? We 
must seek a broader and better definition of 
the object of Sunday-schools. How will this 
do? "To win souls to Christ, make men wise 
unto salvation, and instruct and edify the body 
of Christ." Nor will this definition of the ob- 
ject fully meet the case, unless we keep in 
mind the fact that the one business of the 
Church is to ]3reach the gospel. This is its 
sole commission. For this purpose, "he gave 
some apostles, and some prophets, and some 
evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for 
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of 
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of 
Christ." Now, the great object of all this 
organization and classification is that the gos- 
pel may be so preached and taught as to make 
it "the power of God unto salvation to every 
one that believeth; " to. save soids, to bring men 
to repentance, and induce them to call upon 
God. "For whosoever shall call upon the 
name of the Lord shall be saved. How then 



14 The Child in the Midst; 

shall tliey call on liim in whom they have not 
believed? and how shall they believe in him 
of whom they have not heard? and how shall 
they hear without a preacher? and how shall 
they preach except they be sent? " The gospel 
order, then, is this : Men are saved through faith 
in Christ; and faith cometh by hearing, and 
hearing by the word of God, and the word of 
God by a living ministry. If this defines the 
work of the Chnrch, it also defines the work 
of the Sunday-school; and if it defines the one 
supreme object of Church-work, it also defines 
the one supreme object of the Sunday-school — 
for the Church and the Sunday-school are one. 
The Church could not well employ its talent 
and fulfill its great task without the Sunday- 
school to organize the laborers, laymen and 
ladies, for systematic and efficient work in the 
Lord's vineyard. Through the Sunday-school 
organization the Church can best reach the 
poor and neglected children, and through them 
their parents, and thus go " into the highways 
and hedges, and compel them to come in." 
This was its original design, and should not 
be allowed to drop out of the plan and purpose 
of the larger organization of the Church for 
work in this form. It should be held to this 



Or, The Sunday -school of To-day. 15 

original i)lan. It is true that the Sunday- 
school, as also the Church, magnifies its work 
and mission in the social, intellectual, and 
moral culture of society, in benevolent and 
charitable work, and in many other interests 
of communities; but these are all subordinate 
and subsidiary to the one great object of win- 
ning souls to Christ, and making men wise 
unto salvation — in which work the maturest 
saint and the smallest child may take part, and 
also share the grace. Many of the brightest 
crowns in heaven will be worn by Sunday- 
school teachers who have been "wise to win 
souls," and have "turned many to righteous- 
ness." 



CHAPTER III. 

Who Should Be in the Sunday-school? 

1. Pastoes. The pastor of one congregation 
should be in his Sunday-school as regularly as 
in his pulpit. The pastor of a circuit composed 
of several congregations should dispose of him- 
self and his presence to the best advantage for 
the whole work; not give his entire time to 
one school, but as a general thing be in the 
school of the congregation where he preaches 



16 Tlip Child in the Midst; 

that clay. Every x^astor slionld be felt by liis 
presence and pastoral labors in tlie Siinday- 
scliool. 

2. Si{j)era}uu(afed, sui^ernumerarij, and loccd 
loreacliers slionld each be actively engaged in 
Sunday-school work, as officers or teachers, ac- 
cording to their several ability, when health, 
strength, and the claims of the ]3nlpit upon 
them vdll permit. Who so well cj[nalified for 
this vrork? and who so able to stir into activity 
and lead the Churches where they live ? The 
man of God who is not able to preach may be 
abundantly useful as a Sunday-school teacher. 
No place in the Church so appropriate and 
important for a superannuated preacher as the 
Sunday-school, sitting among the teachers or 
the scholars, "hearing them and asking them 
questions."' The Church loses much in the 
failure of this large and influential class to 
labor diligently in this delightful field. Pastors 
should look after them. 

3. Clturch officials. Stewards, leaders, trust- 
ees, etc., should labor personally in the Sun- 
day-school. They constitute the Quarterly 
Conference, and the law of the Church makes 
the Quarterly Conference "a board of managers 
to superintend the interests of Sunday-schools 



Or, The Simday -school of To-day, 17 

and the instruction of children, and to elect 
superintendents," etc. Many members of the 
Quarterly Conference are content to give their 
official vote and sanction to the work of Sun- 
day-schools without so much as looking into 
them. They never go into the Sunday-school 
as officers of the Church, either to work them- 
selves or to inspect personally the work of 
others. As directors to superintend the inter- 
ests of a bank, a manufacturing company, a 
railroad, an asylum, or an institution of learn- 
ing, they would act very differently, and from 
frincipJe, There is utterly a fault at this point 
with some of our ablest Church officials. What 
is the remedy? Get out of their minds the 
idea that the Sunday-school is intended for 
children only ; impress upon them their respon- 
sibility for *Hhe interests of Sunday-schools 
and the instruction of children," growing out 
of their official relation to the Church; and la- 
bor with them in the gospel until they are 
impelled by their love of Christ and his cause 
to enter heartily into this field also, and to be 
"always abounding in the work of the Lord." 
A steward who says that he has to work so hard 
all the week that he cannot get up in time to 
attend the Sunday-school on Sunday morning 



18 The Child in the Midst; 

must have a conscience seared to utter indiffer- 
ence to moral obligation, and weakened to im- 
jDotency in respect to the liigliest duty of a 
Christian, if he can sleep soundly the holy 
hours away. Per eontra: A steward had a 
class of girls from twelve to sixteen in Sun- 
day-school; they studied iiiQ lessons well, were 
bright and intelligent above the average, but 
they were not Christians. The burden of their 
souls was upon him so heavily that as Sunday 
approached he could scarcely sleep at all. One 
Saturday night he called in the xDastor to join 
him in prayer to God for them. Sunday morn- 
ing they were again on their knees by day-dawn 
praying for them. That day he x^leaded v>dth 
each girl personally to give her heart to Jesus, 
and was surprised to see hov/ readily and easily 
each of the seven jdelded and trusted Jesus for 
salvation. Do likewise. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Who Else Should Be in the Sunday-school? 

1. Parents. The duty of parents to ^^ train up 
their children in the nurture and admonition 
of the Lord" cannot be reles'ated to the Sun- 



Or, The Sundaj/schoGl of To-fJa;/, 19 

day-scliool. Many seem to tliink so. The 
obligation to ^' train up a child in the way he 
should go " comes of the relation between the 
parent and the child, and is not arbitrary. 
The Sunday-school cannot alter that relation, 
nor can it take the place of the parent and 
become a party to the relationship; neither 
does any logic, morals, common sense, or 
scripture, sanction the idea that the Sunday- 
school can meet the parent's obligation to his 
child. The Sunday-school can only heJj:) the 
parent in this most important work; and so 
valuable is this help that no right-thinking 
and right-feeling father or mother will de- 
cline this help, which may be vital. 

The parent's duty to be in the Sunday-school 
as an active participant in its work is three- 
fold: to himself, to his child, and to the 
Church. To himself, to study the word of 
God for himself; to his child, to teach the 
word of God by precept and example; to the 
Church, to work in the Lord's vineyard, 
and win souls to Christ. Parents cannot es- 
cape this obligation without damage to them- 
selves, their children, and the Church. It is 
quite common nowadays for children to lead 
their parents to the Sunday-school, to the 



20 Tlie Child in the Midst; 

house of God, to Christ, to heaven. A grand- 
father, who had not been in the Lord's house 
for many years, and who was growing feeble 
with age, who had resisted the entreaties of 
wife and children, was influenced by a grand- 
child, a bright little girl, to go with her to 
Sunday-school. He was charmed. His old 
heart was softened, and came back to him as 
the heart of a little child. He remained for 
worship. God touched his heart and melt- 
ed it with his love, and when one Sunday 
morning the little girl arose to present herself 
for membership in the Church, she crossed 
the aisle, took the hand of her grandfather, 
an eminent jurist, and led him to the altar, 
and to the minister, to receive with her the 
vows of Church-membership. "A little child 
shall lead them." This story is only one of 
thousands which show that in many cases the 
natural order is reversed, and in the failure of 
parents to lead their children to Christ, God 
uses the children to bring their parents to 
Christ. 

A mother had been so indifferent, cold, 
and worldly-minded, that she declined to re- 
move her Church-membership with her res- 
idence and suffered herself to drop out of the 



Or, The Simday-scJwol of To-day, 21 

Church, and to neglect the duties of a Chris- 
tian. Thus she lived only for the world for 
years, until her little daughter, eight years 
old, Y/ho was attending Sunday-school, began 
to ask questions about the Christian life which 
startled the mother; and when day after day 
the child pleaded for permission to join the 
Church, the mother found that others had 
been doing for her child what she had neg- 
lected to do, and she sought the pastor, came 
back into the Church, and became a devout 
Christian, as she said, for the sake of her 
children as well as for her own good. 

The law of God makes parents primarily 
responsible for the Christian training and 
nurture of their own children. The Sunday- 
school is universally recognized as the most 
efficient help in this work; therefore, every 
parent and person, who is responsible under 
divine law for the Christian character and 
culture of children, should be in the Sunday- 
school, with a view of utilizing to the utmost 
extent this school of Christ in the salvation of 
their children. How Christian parents, who 
spend so much time and money on the educa- 
tion and personal accomplishments of their 
children, can be so indifferent to their moral 



22 The Child in the Midst; 

and religious nurture is as far beyond ordi- 
nary understanding as it is below the first and 
plainest duty. 

CHAPTER V. 

Children in the Sunday-school. 

The Sunday-school, under Robert Raikes and 
his immediate successors, was directed prin- 
cipally to neglected children, and was consid- 
ered primarily as a missionary agency for 
children not in Christian families. Children 
were gathered into the Sunday-school and 
taught — at first by paid teachers — to spell, 
read, and cipher. By this means thousands of 
children obtained the rudiments of an educa- 
tion. It was distinctly a mission-work for the 
intellectual, moral, and religious improvement 
of neglected children. Under this idea it was 
looked upon as a novel instrumentality for 
the benefit of a limited class, and this benefit 
scarcely looked to what is now the ultimate 
object of all Sunday-school work — to bring 
sinners to Christ. Indeed, the child's capaci- 
ty to love Jesus and seiwe him, to love God 
and keep his commandments, was held so 
severely to the tests of its capacity to under- 



Or, The Snndaij-school of To-day. 23 

stand the technical doctrines of Christianity, 
that the Church stood between the children 
and Jesus, and ^' rebuked those that brought 
them." But as the religious capabilities of 
children grev/ upon the Church, the domain 
and work of the Sunday-school increased, until 
its plans and provisions now embrace cdl the 
children of the Church, and the neglected 
children besides. The value of instructing 
children in the truths of the Bible and in 
the principles and precepts of Christianity is 
now universally recognized by the Christian 
Church, while the early conversion and con- 
sistent piety of very many who have been 
brought to Jesus in the Sunday-school have 
gradually convinced Christian parents of the 
religious capabilities of their chikken, and 
turned the heart of the Church to the Sunday- 
school as a precious and powerful agency for 
the spiritual culture of her children. The 
Sunday-school is a necessity in this all-im- 
portant work. 

While the modern Sunday-school may fur- 
nish methods and means for the religious in- 
struction of children widely different from 
those used in ancient times, yet the duty of 
instructinc: them in divine things comes to us 



2i The Child in the Midst; 



from God's ancient people, and with all tlie 
divine sanctions of the original covenant of 
grace and the added authority of all the dis- 
pensations. The covenant with Abraham in- 
cluded his children. Home's '^ Introduction to 
the Holy Scriptures " informs us that at the 
''Feast of the Passover" the Jews were ac- 
customed to "clear the tables, that the chil- 
dren might inquire and be instructed in the 
nature of the feast," When Moses was com- 
manded to summon all Israel " to appear be- 
fore the Lord " to hear the reading of tlie law, 
he was told of God '' to gatlier the people to- 
gether, men, women, and children J' And when 
Moses was repeating the law to Israel, he said, 
''And these words, which I command thee this 
day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt 
teach them diligently unto thy children," etc. 
When Joel cried, '^ Blow the trumpet in Zion, 
and call a solemn assembly," he did not forget 
the " children," for they were never omitted 
from the plans and purposes of God's king- 
dom. They may be excluded from tlie Church, 
but never from the kingdom of God. "Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven," David gave 
thanks unto God because ^^ out of the mouth 
of babes and sucldings hast thou ordained 



Or, The Sunday -school of To-Jaij, 25 

strength;" and when Jesus saw and approved 
of the children's worship in the temple, he 
changed "ordained strength" to "perfected 
praise," and accepted the children's devotiojis 
in the temple as "perfected praise." All the 
children should be in the Lord's temple, to be 
instructed in the Lord's word and worship, 
for the strength and beauty of Zion. The 
strength and beauty of the Church of to-day 
is its recognition of Christ in childhood, and 
the rights of childhood in Christ and his 
Church. 

The starlight which shines upon us from 
above the manger of the Christ-child will yet 
teach the wise men that a child's face is a 
grander study than the stars. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Children in the Church. 

Slowly and reluctantly does the Church 
come to a full recognition of the rights of 
children, under the covenant of grace. In 
theory the Church is nearer right than in prac- 
tice. Both the sentiment and practice of the 
Church are in conflict with the theory that re- 



26 The ChiUiniU Midst; 

lates children to the Church, In the late Ecii- 
menical Conference, in London, the following 
proposition was formulated : "1. All baptized 
children are to be regarded as infant members 
of the Church, potentially Christian in char- 
acter, and haying, in virtue of their relation- 
ship to Christ, a claim to all such privileges 
as are appropriate to their tender years." 
And in the formal ^Mddress of the Ecumen- 
ical Conference," which embodies the mature 
wisdom of that great representative body of 
Methodists, the following language occurs: 
" We recognize as of the highest importance the 
conversion and Christian nurture of children. 
To this end let them be solemnly consecrated 
to God in Christian baptism, and let us ob- 
serve with pious care all the obligations of the 
baptismal covenant. All children are to be 
regarded as redeemed by the blood of Christ, 
and as dear to him, and justly entitled to the 
tenderest care of the Church. They should 
be taught at home, and in all our Sunday- 
schools, the doctrines of our Church, and be 
educated in all the i3rinciples of our holy 
Christianity." These words are addressed ''to 
all the ministers and members of all the Method- 
ist Churches throughout the world," and must 



Or, The Stinda (/-school of To-day. 27 

be accepted as tlie universal sentiment of 
Methodism as to the relation of children to 
the Church. The Church must '^ recognize as 
of the highest importance the conversion and 
Christian nurture of children." But many do 
not believe in the conversion of children at all, 
and many more do not believe in taking chil- 
dren into the Church. Now, let the practice 
conform to the theory, and children will soon 
crowd the temple of God, and make its praise 
perfect. 

The incoming light, recently turned on, 
and the on-rushing forces of the kingdom of 
God have brought the Church through a new 
experience upon this subject, and into a higher 
consciousness of the value and power of child- 
hood. This new experience has suggested a 
change of plans, a revision of literature, and a 
recognition, at last, of the eternal truth that 
to reach the highest Christian manhood we 
must come back to the innocence, purity, sim- 
plicity, and faith of childhood. Childhood 
and Christian manhood are so correlated that 
the Church which has in it the largest pro- 
portion of childhood wdll have the child-life 
and the Christ-life developed in her Christian 
character to the highest degree. " Excex^t ye 



28 The Child in the Midst; 

be conyertedj and become as little cliildren, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heav- 
en. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble him- 
self as this little child, the same is greatest 
in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall 
receive one such little child in my name 
receive th me," for "of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." 

The "child in the midst" of the disciples is 
teaching the Church the nature of the king- 
dom of heaven more eloquently than any 
other preacher of to-day. The ethics of Chris- 
tianity startles the world vvdth the new doctrine 
that to develop the grandest manhood we must 
"become as little children." There is a beau- 
tiful painting in the National Gallery at Edin- 
burgh, which represents Christ laying his 
hand on the head of a little child, seated in 
its mother's lap, in the midst of the disciples, 
and saying, "Except ye become as little chil- 
dren, ye can in nowise enter into the kingdom 
of heaven," with the discijoles, who had dis- 
jjuted with each other for the chief places in 
his kingdom, standing near with downcast 
eyes and blushing faces, and the Pharisees a 
little farther off, trembling under the mild 
rebuke of this, to them, strange doctrine. 



Or, The Sundaij-school of To-day, 29 

"Gentleness shall make us great," and "wis- 
dom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than 
when we soar." 



CHAPTER VII. 
Children in the Congregation. 

The "missing link" between the Sunday- 
school and the congregation is of more im- 
portance than the so-called "missing link" in 
the theory o£ Evolution. To establish regular 
connection between the public worship in the 
congregation and the children of the Sunday- 
school is a difficult problem to solve. How to 
bring the children into the congregation, and 
keep them there as regular hearers of the 
word, are questions worthy of the wisest 
thought of the Church. This problem will 
never be solved under the old theory that 
" the Sunday-school is the nursery of the 
Church," and intended for children only. 
Children reason about it, and say, " The Sun- 
day-school is for us, the public congregation for 
grown folks;" and if they are required to attend 
public worship, they do it with a feeling of con- 
straint and compulsion, irksome and repulsive. 
This fact, and the further fact that no provis- 



30 The Child in the Midst; 

ion is made for the cliildren in tlie regular 
service of the sanctuary, have led some of the 
wisest men to question the expediency of re- 
quiring them to attend public service. " How 
much of public preaching is utterly unintel- 
ligible and useless to them!" says Rev. Dr. 
Tyng, in '^ Forty Years' Experience in Sunday- 
schools." "Often, necessarily, of subjects 
beyond their reach; often, unnecessarily, in 
language which they cannot comprehend." 
President Sears, of Brown University, says: 
"I am by no means sure of the good effect 
on children of sitting in listlessness, and ac- 
quiring habits of inattention in the house of 
God, when nothing is offered to them from the 
pulpit, and they are not expected to under- 
stand, or to have a part in the exercises of 
public worship." Eev. NeAvman Hall asks: 
'^ Should little children be encouraged to at- 
tend our public services? If those services 
are suited to adults, will the children be inter- 
ested? And if not, is it likely they will love 
the house and day of God? " In a prize-essay 
of the London Sunday-school Union, which 
declares " against the practice of taking little 
or ignorant children to the public service of 
the sanctuary," the following language occurs: 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 31 

"What liabits are really formed by practice? 
The habits of sleeping, of inattention and list- 
lessness, of day-dreaming and vain thoughts, 
and of dislike and aversion to the 8a.bbath 
and the sanctuary. These habits are more or 
less formed in every child so trained, and 
cling to them in after-life with almost uncon- 
querable force." To this may be added the 
testimony of every observant pastor, and every 
Christian parent; and this too while children 
and youth constitute the larger and the more 
impressible portion of every community. Does 
the commission to "preach the gospel to every 
creature" restrict it to every adult creature? 
The deplorable, if not criminal, deficiency of 
religious instruction in the family, and the in- 
frequency of the regular public ministrations 
of the gospel in many parts of the country, 
leaving children to grow up in a Christian 
country almost without "the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord," enhance, many 
times over, the gravity and force of this posi- 
tion. What can be done to meet the case? 
Can the Church rest satisfied while her own 
baptized children are excluded from the pub- 
lic ministrations of the gospel by the very 
terms in which the word of life is preached? 



32 The CliUd in the Midst; 

If our children grow up in ignorance and sin, 
and our young peox)le sadly and hopelessly 
stray from the religious fold of their fathers, 
who is to blame? AYho must bear the respon- 
sibility? Is there no remedy? Let us see. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Childeex in Public Worship. 

That children should share in the public wor- 
ship of the sanctuary none will deny. Y^hen 
Jesus came to Jerusalem, he found "the chil- 
dren crying in the temple, and saying, Ho- 
sanna to the Son of David;" but "the chief 
priests and scribes," like many similar Church- 
officials of this day, "were sore displeased, 
and said unto him, Hearest thou what these 
say? And Jesus saith unto them. Tea; have 
ye never read. Out of the mouth of babes and 
sucklings thou hast perfected praise? " If he 
was pleased with the worship of the children 
then, he is pleased now; and if we play the part 
of the "chief priests and scribes," we must ex- 
pect his rebuke. Children are entitled to a full 
share in sanctuary services, and are as well fitted 
for an active part in divine worsliijp as adults are. 



0)', The Sunday-school of To-day, 



The rights of children to the privileges and 
worship of the sanctuary are secured by the 
same covenant which secures the rights of 
adults. They rest upon the same basis, and 
stand or fall together; and by every consider- 
ation, human and divine, they are entitled to 
their share in x^ublic worship. But you say, 
" They cannot understand it." Will you exclude 
them from public worship on this ground? 
Then you must exclude all others who cannot 
understand it. This would require your chief 
priests and scribes to sit at the door of the 
sanctuary and decide upon the qualifications 
of every worshiper. Are you prepared for 
this? But you say, *'They become listless 
and sleepy." That is because you give them 
no share in the worship; you have nothing for 
them. Let them understand that they are 
expected to share in the worship. Feed them 
from the pulpit with food convenient for . 
them, and let them sing, " Hosanna to the Son 
of David," and they will be glad in the Lord, 
and rejoice in the Rock of their salvation. 
This is no new idea; it is an ancient custom — 
as old as Moses, and Samuel, and Ezra, and 
Jesus. The departure from it is a modern 
innovation. It is in evidence, all through 
8 



34 The Child in the Midst; 

Cliurcli history, that yrhen Zioii has pros- 
pered her children ha-ve been diligently 
taught of the Lord; and in the days of Zion's 
languishing and sloth, not Jeremiah only, but 
also the wise and prudent of every age of the 
Church have lamented that "the young chil- 
dren lack bread, and no man breaketh it unto 
them." The commission, " Feed my lambs," 
is as imperatiye as the other, " Feed my sheep." 
Shall the minister feed only the sheep from 
the pulpit? ''Shall he only teach the adult 
mind and heart? " Says an eloquent advocate 
of children's claims: ''Shall he say, 'Ho, ye 
men and women, who can understand intro- 
duction, proposition, head, points, peroration, 
and application, come ye and hear the truth?' 
Shall he say to the simple-minded, ' I cannot 
come down to you?' Shall he say to the little 
children, 'I have no crumbs for you?' " "But 
I cannot preach to children." You can, and, 
with the same time, thought, and study given 
to your preparation for the instruction and 
edification of children that you give to your 
preparation to preach to adults, you cannot 
only feed but save the lambs of the fold. A 
New England pastor says: "As many as one- 
half of our parishioners are under the age of 



Or, The Sundcnj-school of To-dc(}j, 35 

sixteen years, and one-tliird, according to my 
bills for forty-eight years, die nnder ten." 
Dr. Kirk says: "Christian families have but a 
small portion of the youthful population. "We 
must then look mainly to the pastor and Sun- 
day-school teacher for their religious nurt- 
ure." Another writer adds: "Nor can he 
whose commission requires him to feed the 
lambs, as well as the sheep, afford to give up 
the instruction of the young to other hands." 
Let us prayerfully ponder these things. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Special Service for Children. 

Children should not only have a share in the 
regular worship of God's house, but special 
service should be held for them. The sermon 
should be prepared for them, and preached to 
them. The singing should be done by them, 
and all the worship of the hour should be 
adapted to their comprehension, and designed 
to call out and direct their devotions. This 
special service for children may be held on 
Sunday afternoon where the Sunday-school 
meets in the morning, or vice versa. It should 



36 The Child in the Midst; 

also be held occasionally on Sunday morning 
at eleven o'clock, and constitute the regular 
service of the day. How often, the pastor 
must determine for himself and his own con- 
gregation. 

In a station, and especially in a city church, 
the special service for children should be 
held in the afternoon of every Sunday in the 
year; or in the forenoon, where the Sunday-* 
school meets in the afternoon. How such 
service should be conducted depends upon the 
pastor, the place, and the children. Certainly 
no stereotyped form can be prescribed. Each 
pastor has his own talent and adaptations, and 
no two pastors would conduct a children's serv- 
ice just alike. A few general directions may be 
given, out of an experience of more than twenty 
years. 

The children should take an active part in 
the service. This will quicken their interest 
and attention, and impress the service upon 
them the more deeply. Let the children sing; 
let all the children sing, and let them sing 
often during the service. The pastor, or lead- 
er, can help them to sing with the spirit, and 
with the understanding also, by selecting 
puitable hymns for devotional exercises, and 



4 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-daij, 37 

now and then explaining the meaning of the 
verse in a few words. The gospel may be the 
power of God unto salvation when sung as well 
as wdien read and preached. Let the children 
repeat with the pastor, or leader, the Lord's 
Prayer at the conclusion of the opening prayer. 
Catechise the children upon the Command- 
ments, the history, teachings, and works of 
Jesus, and upon the conditions of salvation, 
and illustrate the subject by appropriate and 
tndhftd stories; not too many, but such as 
will make the lesson impressive and practical. 
Close the service by repeating the Creed in 
concert. Cards with the Creed and the Com- 
mandments on them may be given to the 
children, and used to advantage. Li reading 
the Scriptures, it is a good plan to let the 
children respond by reading alternate verses 
with the leader; not at every service, but 
sometimes. In all of these items children 
can take an active part in the service, and will 
be interested and profited. Vary the order of 
exercises within the limits of propriety. Have 
the children all together, and on the front 
seats, so that they can stimulate and support 
each other. Never stand in the pulpit, but 
come down to them, and make yourself famil- 



The CI tiki in the Midst; 



iar with them. Put yourself on a level ^vith 
them, without seeming to do so— be natural and 
easy, gentle and affectionate; win their confi- 
dence and love, and you will have but little 
trouble to draw them to Christ. 

The advantage of sjpecial service for chil- 
dren at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, 
occasionally, say once a month, or once a 
quarter, is not only to preach the gospel to 
them, but also to impress upon them the im- 
X3ortance of public worship, and their own posi- 
tion and value in the Church, to bring adults to 
worship with them, and then we can the more 
successfully bring them into the congregation 
to worship with adults. The affectionate pas- 
tor of the children will always have them in 
his congregation. 

CHAPTER X. 

Peeaching to Children. 

It requires the utmost effort of ability to 
preach successfully to children. In this some 
men are specially gifted, but they are few. 
Most preachers require for this work much 
study, long practice, and all the helps in reach. 
Cecil says: "Nothing is easier than to tcdk to 



Or, The Sujidu'/scJiool of To-daij. 39 

children, but to talk to them as they ought to 
be talked to is the very last effort of ability. 
It requires great genius to throw the mind into 
the habits of children's minds. I aim at this, 
but I find it the utmost effort of ability. No 
sermon ever put my mind half so much on a 
stretch." Dr. Newton says: "My children's 
sermons cost me more time and labor than any 
that I preach." Only a few preachers are gifted 
with this talent. It is the best gift. Let it be 
used freely. Preachers who have tried to 
handle religious truth so as to interest and 
instruct children, and have tv/isted and stam- 
mered in nervous torment under the conscious- 
ness of failure, have the cordial sympathy of a 
vast army of fellow-sufferers. But when it is 
understood that children must be preached to, 
and when the command, " Feed my lambs," is 
recognized as equally binding and imperative 
as the other, "Feed my sheep," no man can 
consider himself fully qualified for the minis- 
try, and the care of the flock as an under-shep- 
herd, until he has learned how to preach to 
children. The wisest men of the Church are 
X3leading the interest of a vast and needy multi- 
tude of souls — children, if you please — to which 
the attention of candidates for the ministry 



40 The Child in the Midst; 

should be turned in their preparation for this 
great work. John Cotton Smith, in treating 
of this subject, says: ''Jesus would not have 
imposed upon his ministers a duty which he 
had not given them the ability to perform." 
The human mind is capable of great expansion 
and flexibility under culture, and the man who 
can preach well to educated adults, can by 
prayerful study and practice preach well to 
children. ''AVhere there is a will there is a 
way," applies here as well as elsewhere. 

The following prerequisites may be helpful 
to young preachers by Avay of suggestions: 
There must be the will to do it; prepandion 
for the work by careful study of the subject 
and the object; have something to say, v/ith 
your ideas clearly defined upon that something 
before you begin; have a plan — know how to 
begin and close; use simple language — be plain, 
artless, direct; let your subject be illuminated 
with illustrations — a few unvarnished, truthful 
stories from child-life, and comparisons taken 
from familiar things. The attention and in- 
terest of children can be quickened by asking 
questions, easy of answer, now and then in the 
run of the discourse. Speak from a heart filled 
with the Holy Ghost, and bubbling over Avith 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 41 

love for children. Go before cliildren with 
something to say, a plan of saying it, with 
simple language, and a heart full of love, and 
you will not fail to interest and profit this large 
and impressible class of hearers. 

It must not be overlooked that some men 
preach to children according to their capacity 
in every public congregation. The children 
are fed with the crumbs that fall from the 
adults' table. The habit of addressing a part 
of every sermon to children is successful with 
some preachers, while others still have a few 
words — a "sermonette " — for the children every 
Sunday morning, before proceeding with the 
regular sermon of the day. Let every man be 
fully persuaded in his own mind. This all in- 
dicates the growing importance of this part of 
a minister's work. '' Papa, are you going to 
say any thing to-day that I can understand? " 
asked a little girl of her father, as they were 
setting out for church one Sunday morning. 
This tender appeal touched the father's heart. 
He could not answer nay. He could not say, 
"No; you must sit in silent penance during 
all the long service, with never a word to inter- 
est or profit you." He thought about his own 
child, and the many other little ones whose 



42 The Child in the Midst; 

limigry souls waited in listless, restless, hope- 
less silence under liis ministry. So as lie 
preached that day he said, "And now, children, 
I will say something to you about this." In- 
stantly the face of every child in that audience 
brightened — sleex3y ones started up, tired ones 
Avere fresh to listen, and restless ones were all 
attention and eagerness for the message from 
the minister; and though the words w^ere few 
and simple, they were eagerly grasped and 
comprehended, and both the minister and his 
theme were invested with ney/ interest to the 
little ones. 

"Papa, you used such big words to-day that 
I could not understand the sermon," said an- 
other little girl, on returning from church with 
her father. He tried to simplify his language 
for the pulpit ever after that. 

The multitude of boohs and papers for chil- 
dren teeming from the press of every Christian 
country has given the Church a new language 
in which to preach the gospel; taught us the 
use and the value of illustrations in religious 
teaching; turned the hearts of the fathers to 
their children; made a distinct religious litera- 
ture for our children; brought the Christ-life, 
through the gospel, into the child-life; com- 



Or, The Sanduij -school of To-da;/, 43 

pelled the Cliiircli to recognize the child-life 
as the best type of the divine life; and made 
"the child in the midst" the most eloquent 
preacher of the present day — interpreting for 
us the life of Jesus, who said, " Except ye be 
converted, and become as little children, ye 
shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." 



CHAPTER XI. 

The Conversion of ChildpcEN. 

The word of God teaches that the child is con- 
ceived in iniquity and born in sin. 

Soon as we draw oar infant breath, 
The seeds of sin grow up for death. 

Original sin ''is the corruption of the nature 
of every man, that naturally is engendered 
of the offspring of Adam." The doctrine of 
inherent depravity must first be accepted 
in all its fullness and force before the gospel 
of saving grace can be successfully preached 
to children. To tell children that they are 
naturally good is not only false and mis- 
leading, but it defeats the gospel. They 
are naturally bad; they are sinful by nature, 
and sinners by practice, as all their fathers 



44 The Child in the Midst; 

were before tliem. Let iis not deceive tliem. 
It might please cliildren to be told that they 
are all so good, and beautiful, and pure — that 
they are certain of heaven — but it would not 
profit them. It is not true; it is not the gos- 
pel. "There is none that doeth good; no, not 
one." "If we say that v/e have no sin, we 
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in 
us;" and if we tell children that they have 
no sin, we deceive them, and falsify Christ's 
gospel. We must preach the same gospel to 
children that we preach to adults. If adults 
are "dead in trespasses and in sins," so are 
children. We do not need the gospel in any 
sense in Avhich our children do not need it. 
If all flesh has corrupted its way, and all the 
world is guilty before God, surely we can 
claim no exception for our children. If we 
are depraved, they are depraved; if we are 
lost in sin, they are lost in sin; if we must be 
born again, they must be born again, or they 
'^cannot see the kingdom of God; " if we need 
to be created anew in Christ Jesus, so they 
must be new creatures in Christ Jesus; if 
we are " saved by grace, through faith," they 
are saved in the same way; if we come to 
Christ by repentance and faith, they come to 



Or, The Sundai/srl/ool of To-day, 45 

Christ in no other way. We cannot preach 
one gospel to children, and another to adults. 
Let us cease our wranglings over the doctrine 
of depravity, and cover up our differences un- 
der the great fact that religion is the onltj 
remedij for sin, and we answer the many and 
foolish objections to the conversion of chil- 
dren. " Sin is the transgression of the law." 
The child comes into the world with a de- 
praved nature, which inclines it to evil, and 
the child becomes a sinner so soon as it 
transgresses God's holy law; and, as a sinner, 
the child needs the saving grace of the gospel 
as any other sinner. Before the child breaks 
God's holy commandments, it is saved uncon- 
ditionally — that is, without repentance and 
faith. It is redeemed by the blood of Christ 
from the guilt of Adam. After its own per- 
sonal transgression, it is saved upon the 
terms of the gospel, just as any other sinner. 
But the repentance and faith which bring 
Christ into the heart of a little child may be 
incomprehensible to us, and that form of gospel 
truth which brings the child's heart to repent- 
ance and faith may be, and must be, as simple 
as the child's mind. " Let us not therefore 
judge one another any more; but judge this 



46 The Child in the Midst ; 

rather, tiiat no man pnt a stumbling-block or 
an occasion to fall in his brother's way" — in 
his child's way. That children are conyertecl, 
"born again," and have an experience of 
grace, we cannot doubt who study the gospel. 
At what age? We cannot tell the youngest 
age, nor is it important that we should know. 
The fact that w^e cannot tell whether three,, 
five, or seven years is the youngest age at 
vrhich children may be converted, does not 
weaken the position here taken any more than 
does tlie other fact that children cannot com- 
prehend all of the conditions and obligations 
of Christianity. Ko doubt there is a line at 
which the child reaches accountability, and 
meets the offered grace of the gospel. That 
line is not fixed by the age of the child, but 
by its mental and moral development. Some 
children reach it at an earlier age than others. 
An old preacher believes that he v/as savingly 
converted at three, and that the experience 
was as distinct as any part of his subsequent 
experience. A little girl, now ten years old, 
stood up in a meeting, and told of her conver- 
sion at five, and, when rigidly catechised before 
the audience, she said that she was under con- 
viction for sin about a month, during vrhich 



Or, The Snnday-scliool of To-dcnj, 47 

time she was very unhappy; that she prayed 
earnestly for pardon, and when she knew and 
felt her sins forgiven she was happy, and had 
been at peace with God ever since. Her tes- 
timony was vivid and thrilling. A little girl 
began to pray at six, and at nine her experi- 
ence was as satisfactory and mature as many 
adults at fifty. Yea, it was better, and sweet-' 
er, and richer. One of the saintliest ladies in 
the West will tell you of her conversion, at 
family prayers one morning, when she was 
seven. She vv^.s so ha]3py that she clapped 
her hands, laughed, cried, shouted, and praised 
God. It was not during a revival, but in the 
regular family worship. A majority of the 
Christian people of to-day were converted in 
childhood, and yet many of the people who 
were themselves converted in childhood object 
now to the conversion of children, because 
some who were thus converted did not hold 
out. The same objection will lie against the 
conversion of adults. Parents who hinder 
their children from coming to Christ assume 
an awful responsibility. An old man, whose 
heart was supposed to be callous to all relig- 
ious influences, heard his grandchild, seven 
years old, pleading with its mother for per- 



48 The ChihJiiitlw Midst; 

mission to join the Cliurcli. The mother dis- 
couraged the child, and sent her away. No 
sooner had the child gone from its mother's 
presence than the old man turned to the 
mother, his own daughter, and, with tears in 
his eyes, said, "Don't you refuse to let the 
child join the Church at once." The woman 
w^as startled; she had never known her father 
to manifest any interest on that subject before. 
She barely had time to ask his reasons, when 
he said, with deep emotion: " My mother made 
that mistake with me. I wanted to join the 
Church, and become a Christian, when I was 
a little boy, but she refused me. How differ- 
ent my life might have been! Now, it is too 
late. That was the turning-point in my life, 
and I have been a very wicked man. I hope 
that God forgave my mother, for she thought 
it was for the best. Do n't hinder your child." 
And the old man arose, and left the room. 
Fathers and mothers know not what they do 
when they keep their children from Him who 
said, "Suffer the little children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven." 

No objection has ever been urged against 
the conversion of children that may not be 



Or, Tfte Sunday-school of To-day, 49 

urged with equal force against the conversion 
of adults, while many plain and obvious rea- 
sons favor the conversion of children that 
cannot apply to adults. The wail of broken- 
hearted fathers and mothers, whose dissipated 
sons and ruined daughters are bringing their 
gray hairs down in sorrow to the grave, pleads 
more eloquently than tongue or pen for the 
conversion of children, and for their careful 
Christian training and nurture. Lay the 
foundations of Christianity in the susceptible 
young heart, and the xjossibilities of Christian 
character and usefulness in a long life of de- 
votion and consecration to God are beyond all 
human computation. How rich and ripe the 
sheaves thus grown and garnered! 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Child in the Midst. 

*^CoME, let us live for our children," is a suit- 
able motto for this age, in which childhood is 
becoming the living text-book. The study of 
living childhood by the great minds of the 
Church is bringing us into a new and higher 
view of God's kingdom. So long as the disci- 
4 



50 Tlie Child in the 2Udst; 

pies ask, " Yv^ho is the greatest in the kingdom 
of heayen? " so long will Jesus keep " a little 
child sitting in the midst," to rebuke our 
worldly ambition, and teach us the simplicity, 
the purity, the sincerity, the humility, the 
faith, and the divine beauty of the kingdom 
of heaven in the character of a little child. 
Tlie life of Jesus is translated for us through 
the character of this little child, and the 
words of Jesus are thrilling the v/hole Church 
with a divine eloquence, imparted to them 
by the purity andL povrer of child -life, the 
counterpart of the Christ-life. "Except ye 
be converted, and become as little chiklren, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself 
as this little child, the same is greatest in the 
kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive 
one such little child in my name, receiveth me." 
It is vforthy of note that the child which 
Jesus set in the midst of them, and made the 
highest model of the divine life, and the great- 
est in the kingdom of heaven, was a JittJe 
child. "He took a little child;" "Except 
ye be converted, and become as little children; " 
"As this little child; " " One such little child; " 
"One of these little ones," etc. All through it 



Or, The SiuKhu-schooJ erf To-:hf;j. 51 

is a Utile child, not a big child. He said, 
'' Suffer the Utile children to come unto me," 
" for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Shall 
we say that our children must be large and 
well-grov/n before we will suffer them to come 
to Jesus? He called the little children, and 
said, ''Of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
"But they can't understand; w^ait until they 
grovv^ in stature, and increase in knov/ledge, so 
that they can understand what they are doing." 
Who and what are we that we should instruct 
Jesus, and say to him, " You said, ' Suffer the 
little children to come unto me,' but xve think 
the little children cannot understand it yet; 
we Vvdll suffer the larger ones to come?" "What 
dangerous presumption ! 

George Macdonald calls attention to the 
words of Jesus spoken after placing the little 
child in the midst of the twelve — '^ Yv^hosoever 
shall receive one of such children in my name, 
receive th me; and whosoever shall receive me, 
receiveth not me, but him that sent me " — 
and says: "Pure childhood is a revelation of 
Christ, as Christ is the manifestation of God; 
that is, the child-like is the Christ-like; yea, 
more — it is the God-like." And in his poem 
"Within and Without," this favorite author 



52 The Child in the Midst 

presents tlie same idea in Julian's words to 
his child: 

My darling child, God's little daughter dressed 
In human clothes, that light may be thus clad 
In shining, so to reach my human eyes ! 
Come as a little Christ from heaven to earth, 
To call me ^^Father,^^ that my heart may know 
What Father means, and turn its eyes to God. 

Who will say that the stndy of child-life and 
child-culture in the Church of God, by which 
the kingdom of heaven has received a new and 
divine interpretation, is not due to the modern 
Sunday-school? ''The child in the midst" is 
the teacher, the preacher, of to-day. With, 
such a preacher, the heart of the Church will 
be tender and full of love; the life of the 
Church will be pure and without guile; the 
faith of the Church will be strong and unques- 
tioning; the work of the Church will be done 
without strife for preferment; and the king- 
dom of heaven Avill become as a little child, and 
''the child shall die a hundred years old." 



PART TWO 



CHAPTER I. 

The Pastor's Place in the Sunday-school. 

IF tlie Sunclay-scliool and Cliurcli are one, 
then the pastor of the Church is the pastor of 
the Sunday-school; his office defines his place, 
and the word itself defines his office. '' The 
word ' pastor ' is derived from pascerej pastiim, 
to pasture, to feed; and literally means a shep- 
herd, one who has the care of flocks and herds." 
It means also " a minister of the gospel, having 
the charge of a church or congregation; one 
who has the care of souls." Kightly consid- 
ered, the Sunday-school is the Church study- 
ing the word of God. Then, nowhere does the 
pastor's office more clearly define his place 
than in this pasture, where his flock are feed- 
ing on the ** bread of life." He is the shep- 
herd of the flock, to lead them into "green 
pastures," and " beside the still waters." The 
true pastor will fill this responsible place ju- 
diciously. It is the catechetical school of the 
Church, in which the doctrines and duties of 



54 The Chad in the Midst; 

Christianity are taiiglit from tlie Holy Script- 
ures, and the pastor is the anthoritatiye head 
of the faculty of instruction. Himself taught 
of God, he is a teacher of teachers; a leader of 
the wise; an instructor of babes. No officious 
board of managers, superintendent, or associ- 
ation of teachers, can displace the pastor from 
his authoritative position as the official head 
of his church in this school, which he has or- 
ganized under the law of the Church for the 
study of the word of God, without striking at 
the very source of authority from which they 
derive their existence. Let the pastor guard 
well, and maintain firmly, his place as the offi- 
cial head of the Sunday-school, as he that 
must give account; and Ipt the Sunday-school 
see that the pastor receives all proper recog- 
nition and reverence. 



CHAPTER II, 

The Pastoe's Office. 

As the pastor's office defines his place in the 
Sunday-school, so his place defines his office. 
His office is that of a shepherd, a leader, a gen- 
eral superintendent, having the oversight of all 



Or, Tlie Stoidcff/scJiool of To-daij, 55 

the work in all the school. He is officially relat- 
ed to every department, every officer and teach- 
er, every class and member of the school, as the 
head over all. By the law of the Church, he 
is clothed with official authority in the school 
as its chief pastor and teacher. But his of- 
fice comes from a source higher than the law 
of the Church; it inheres in his commission 
from God to preach and teach. His call to the 
office and work of the ministry implies and 
authorizes his official and pastoral ministry in 
the Sunday-school as Vv^ell as in the public 
congregation. St. Paul says, '^ Inasmuch as I 
am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine 
office,'' The true pastor will magnify his office 
wisely and well by exercising official supervis- 
ion of the Sunday-school, not captiously, but 
discreetly — as one called of God, and commis- 
sioned to " feed the Church of God, which he 
has purchased with his own blood." In no part 
of his official work can the pastor come so near 
to hearts that are more easily won to Christ. 
The Sunday-school should recognize the pas- 
tor's official relation to it by placing his name 
at the head of its roll of officers; by heeding 
his counsel, and yielding obedience to his au- 
thority in all matters involving the legitimate 



56 TJie Child in the Midst; 

work of the scliooL The cases are rare in 
which the pastor's authority should be inter- 
posed, but when necessity exists he should not 
hesitate. The sorest trial to a conscientious 
pastor is to sit still and witness the indolence 
and indifference of teachers, the inattention 
and impatience of classes, and the disorder 
and confusion permitted by the superintend- 
ent who has no discipline and substitutes 
scolding for authority. 



CHAPTER III, 

The Pastor's Official Functions, 

The law of the Church defines the official 
functions of the preacher in charge to be: To 
organize Sunday-schools; to nominate super- 
intendents; to report to the Quarterly Con- 
ference the number and state of the Sun- 
day-schools; and, together with the Quarterly 
Conference, to have the general supervision 
of all the Sunday-schools in the bounds of his 
pastoral charge. The law thus defines, but 
does not limit, the functions of the pastor. 
The functions of the teacher, the preacher, 
the pastor, cannot be fully defined nor limited 



Or, The Sundaij-school of To-day, 57 

by organic law. Tliey refer to, and are de- 
rived from, the nature of Ms call and commis- 
sion to preacli the gospel and teach all nations. 
A wise discrimination of circumstances, and a 
judicious use of expedients must determine the 
exercise of his official functions in their prac- 
tical application to his work rather than statu- 
tory law. Keeping in yiew the high object of 
the pastor's call and commission, we may dis- 
cover a diviner meaning in the Sunday-school 
derived from the supreme object of its organ- 
ization. The pastor organizes the Sunday- 
school the more efficiently to preach and teach 
the gospel. He appoints the superintendent 
to represent him and perform his official func- 
tions for the school, as an under-shepherd, to 
appoint teachers, and superintend their work 
for the pastor; he reports to the Quarterly 
Conference as from his own work, being offi- 
cially responsible for the instruction given in 
the Sunday-school. Thus he employs others 
to act for him; he multiplies himself in the 
superintendent, teachers, and officers, the 
more efficiently to preach, and teach, and dis- 
charge the functions growing out of the official 
relation he sustains to " all the flock over the 
which the Holy Ghost hath made him over- 



58 The Chad in tJw Midst; 

seer," From the stand-point of his call and 
commission^ the pastor's functions cannot be 
defined away even by the refinement of dis- 
tinctions without a difference. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Pas toe's Duty. 

Duty is obligation in action; and obligation 
comes of the relation of persons and things. 
Law may define, but cannot create, obligation. 
Moral obligation comes of the relation we sus- 
tain to God; has its foundation in our moral 
nature; is defined by moral law, and makes 
necessary a moral government. Hence moral 
obligation as such is absolute and unchange- 
able. It cannot be increased, or diminished, 
Vvdthout a radical change in man's moral nature; 
and then it would revolutionize the moral gov- 
ernment of God. A man's relation to the 
Church adds social to moral obligation; but his 
moral obligation is not increased by being in 
the Church, nor diminished by being out of the 
Church. It is one thing that is unalterably 
fixed. Novf , this will help us to understand the 
pastor's duty in the Sunday-school. No moral 



Or, The Sunday-scliool of To-dcnj, 59 

obligation as such is derived from liis relation 
to the Sunday-school, but this relation brings 
him under the strongest personal and social 
obligation to the members of his Sunday- 
school; and the discharge of these obligations, 
to the best of his ability, is the measure of his 
duty. If the Sunday-school is doing his work, 
then it is his duty to be present during its ses- 
sions, as far as may be consistent with other 
duties, to superyise the work, and increase its 
efficiency. If the superintendent, officers, and 
teachers are, in any sense, his agents to do his 
work, and to multiply aiul modify himself in 
this specific function of teaching the gospel, 
then his responsibility in the matter is so great 
that his most yigilant and constant watch-care 
is required to meet it. He shoukl know his 
agents and helpers — their character, qualij&ca- 
tions, methods, and helps; and he cannot know 
them too well. It is a very sacred trust thus 
committed to them, and he is largely respon- 
sible for the character of their work. It is 
their work, as well as his work. They are co- 
w^orkers with him, as he is with Christ, the 
Head of the Church. For this work, ''all 
things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, 
or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or 



60 Tlte Child in the Midst; 

things present, or things to come; all are 
yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is 
God's." 

The truly wise and wide-awake pastor will 
not hesitate to levy upon all the agencies of 
the Church, and execute God's claim upon all 
of its resources of life and talent to do God's 
will and work. The economy of the Church 
lays this duty upon the pastor, and his success 
in the work depends largely upon his ability 
to organize and utilize the resources at his 
command. The successful pastor puts others 
to work under him upon organized methods, 
and makes the work efficient by the added 
force of his personal supervision and judicious 
direction. It is as difficult to define the multi- 
form duties of the pastor, growing out of his 
relation to the Sunday-school and Church, as 
it is to classify and characterize the special 
functions which officially emanate from the 
pastor, and are multix3lied into the thousand- 
fold activities of a Church through its indi- 
vidual and organized lay workers. 

If " duty is the sublimest word in the lan- 
guage," it is because it means more than any 
other word in the language. The pastor who 
measures its meaning by his own life and la- 



0)% TJie Sunday-school of To-day, Gl 

bors will be " wise to win souls," and will " turn 
many to righteousness," and "shine as the 
stars forever and ever," j;ro^'/cM that he also 
measure his life and labors by the meaning 
of this sublime word. Each laborer in the 
Lord's vineyard, v/e are taught by the parable, 
has his talent and his task; and his task is the 
measure of his talent. With two talents his 
task is double the task of one talent, and with 
five talents it is five times greater than with 
one. To each man according to his ability — 
his talent. "When He calls the laborers, shall 
it be, " Well done, thou good and faithful serv- 
ant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord? " 



CHAPTER r. 

The Pastok's Work. 

He should not superintend the school. He 
should not teach a class. If there be no com- 
petent layman to fill the office of superintend- 
ent, he may fill the ofiice until he can find 
one; or in the absence of the superintendent 
he may temporarily fill his place. He should 
be present wdth his counsel and help, and to 
do any extra and needed work for or with the 



62 The Child in the Midst; 

snperiiitendent, such as to conduct the opening 
exercises occasionally, but not often; to re- 
view and apply the lesson at its close; and to 
see that the school is not talked to death by 
visitors — or himself. In many v/ays his pres- 
ence and services may be helpful to the super- 
intendent, and profitable to the school. 

He should not teach a class — that is, he 
should not confine himself to one class as a 
regular teacher during the session of the Sun- 
day-school. He may teach a class at some 
other hour, or he may occasionally take the 
place of an absent teacher, or for special rea- 
sons he may profitably teach a class now and 
then in the presence of the regular teacher; 
but he should always study the lesson, and 
be prepared to render ready and cheerful help 
to any teacher; he should know the character 
and qualifications of each teacher, the methods 
of teaching, the habits of study, the helps em- 
ployed, and thus be prepared to make sugges- 
tions, remove difficulties, explain obscure pas- 
sages in the lesson, and make himself familiar, 
agreeable, and pleasantly approachable to any 
and all persons in the school, so that teachers 
and pupils will feel and appreciate the loving 
X3resence of the pastor and his jorayerf ul solic- 



Or, The Sunda;/-schooJ of To-day. G3 

itude. He will thus be prepared to find out 
and suggest to the superintendent suitable 
persons for teachers, and otherwise to study 
the needs of the school, and help supply them; 
to aid, instruct, advise, admonish, and exhort, 
as occasion may require; to seek out and con- 
verse with the troubled and the penitent; and, 
without being obtrusive or offensively officious, 
prosecute successfully the vfork of the minis- 
try in his personal contact v/ith the school. 
His personal acquaintance with the children 
thus formed wall not only aid his ministry to 
them, but will often open his v/ay to the hearts 
and homes of strangers, and make his minis- 
try a blessing to many. A pastor noticed a 
little girl, in the infant department, Vvdio was a 
stranger. He spoke to her; inquired her name 
and where she lived; learned that her parents 
were strangers; called to see them the next 
v/eek; his attentions brought them to Church, 
interested them upon the subject of salvation, 
and soon resulted in the whole family becom- 
ing Christians. A pastor sav/ a strange lady 
enter the Sunday-school room ; he approached 
her; welcomed her to the school; learned her 
name, and that she was visiting the several 
Sunday-schools of the city with a view of do- 



64 TheChndintlieMkht; 

ing good. He secured lier as a teaclier, and 
then as a member of liis Cliiircli, and a more 
faithful and successful Vy^orker for the Lord 
was not to be found. Instead of superintend- 
ing the school, or teaching a class, the pastor 
should be free to welcome strangers, and use 
his o]3portunities to the very best advantage, 
becoming, as far as possible, personally omni- 
present; magnifying his office, and delivering 
himself with force and effect upon every class 
of his people. It is one thing for a pastor to 
sit up in a chair and look at his Sunday-school 
and be looked at as a figure-head, but it is 
quite another thing to be an earnest, active 
worker every vv here and all the time in his 
school, cultivating strangers, teachers, schol- 
ars, and officers, and infusing the glow of a 
warm heart, the sanctity of a holy life, and the 
inspiration of a divine commission to " Feed 
my lambs," "Feed my sheep," and "Feed the 
flock of God which he has purchased with his 
own blood." ''Go, v/ork to-day in my vine- 
yard." This order is imperative. " To-day " 
— to-morrow may be too late. Evil habits are 
fastening themselves upon the young heart, 
and fixing the young life "in the way of evil 
men." To-morrow the soul maybe lost. "My 



Or, The Siindaij-scliQol of To-day, 65 

vineyard" is the place, not outside of it; my 
vineyard is the Church; the Sunday-school is 
the Church. Go, work to-day in the Sunday- 
school. " Go — ivorhy 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Pastoe and the Children. 

" Will you diligently instruct the children in 
every place? " is one of the ordination vows of 
every pastor. This evidently widens his work 
with the children beyond the precincts and ses- 
sions of the Sunday-school, and relates him to 
the children of every household in his pastoral 
charge, whether they be in the Sunday-school 
or not. In the law of the Church (Section II., 
page 122), the pastor's relation to children is 
thus set forth: "What directions are given 
concerning the children of the Church? Ans, 

1. Let the minister diligently instruct and ex- 
hort all parents to dedicate thair children to the 
Lord in baptism as early as convenient. Ans, 

2. In his pastoral visitations let him pay spe- 
cial attention to the children ; speak to them per- 
sonally and kindly on experimental and practi- 
cal godliness, according to their capacity," etc. 

5 



66 The CiiUd in the Midst; 

Under the modern notions o£ training chil- 
dren, the pastor finds the necessity for 
"Answer 1" increasing daily, and the duty en- 
hancing to be still more diligent to " instruct 
and exhort parents to dedicate their children 
to the Lord in baptism." The pastor who 
does not see the growing tendency in the 
Church to neglect this important duty, and 
the corresponding necessity for his diligent 
instruction and exhortation, either closes his 
eyes to the facts or has an exceptional charge. 

"Answer 2 " is much more difficult to per- 
form, owing to the altered conditions and usages 
of family -life; not only the difference be- 
tween former years and now, but the differ- 
ences of home-life and customs in the same 
community. The pastor rarely finds the chil- 
dren at home; they are either at school, or at 
work. When at home they are not usually in 
readiness to see the preacher. Mothers ex- 
cuse the children, or delay the pastor unnec- 
essarily to prepare them to make their appear- 
ance. The very best pastors have been so 
often defeated in their work among the chil- 
dren, in their homes, that they have been 
forced to adopt other methods of speaking to 
the children on " experimental and practical 



Or, Tlie S inula ij-scliool of To-day, G7 

godliness," and of instructing tliem ''in the 
nature, design, privileges, and obligations of 
tlieir baptism." And this may be a providen- 
tial blessing by multiplying the pastoral in- 
struction of children a hundred-fold. 

Few pastors who love children, and who rec- 
ognize their commission to ]3reach the gospel 
to children to be equally binding with their 
commission to preach the gospel to adults, can 
be content with what they can do for them in 
their homes and in the Sunday-school. The 
pastor may get in a hasty word or two to a 
child at home, and then under conditions not 
favorable for lasting impression; but as a rule 
he must be content to draw the children near- 
er to him by his gentle and affectionate man- 
ner — win their confidence and love, and thus 
prepare the way for more profitable instruc- 
tion elsewhere. This is now about the best 
performance of this pastoral duty that can be 
expected under the present variable conditions 
of family-life. The pastor of resources and 
expedients will provide for this exigency of 
his work, and may by so doing enhance the 
value of his ministry to the children. Indeed, 
he must do it; necessity is upon him, not only 
that he may fulfill his ministry to the chil- 



68 The Child in the Midst; 

dren, but that lie may be prepared to perform 
the official duty for them and the Church pre- 
scribed by the law in "Answer 3 " to the same 
question, viz. : "As soon as they comprehend 
the responsibilities involved in a public pro- 
fession of faith in Christ, and give evidence 
of a sincere and earnest determination to dis- 
charge the same, see that they be duly recog- 
nized as members of the Church, agreeably to 
the provisions of the Discipline." 



CHAPTER VII. 

Catechumens. ■ 

How to "bring up children in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord" is not a modern 
question, nor does it groAv out of the Sunday- 
school ; but the Sunday-school has grovvm out 
of this question. The many x>hases of this 
question presented in the inspired v/ord has 
given rise to many fancies and vagaries, con- 
cerning the relation of children to the Church, 
which the wisest men seem unable to remove. 
The modern Sunday-school is a wide depart- 
ure from the primitive methods adopted by 
the Church, and, whether wise or otherwise, 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day. 69 

will not be discussed in these pages. The 
contrast between the simple and severe meth- 
ods of the primitive days and the present 
International Lesson Quarterlies, with their 
illustrated helps and multiform literature, may 
be sufficiently suggested by the following brief 
statement : 

For many centuries, and by many Churches, 
papal and Protestant, children have been re- 
garded as catechumens, and, as such, provisions 
were made for their catechetical instruction in 
the principles and precepts, the doctrines and 
duties, of Christianity. To aid in this work, 
the Church has provided and published innu- 
merable " Question-books " and " Catechisms," 
some of which have been recognized as the 
basis of the doctrines and the embodiment of 
the creed of the Church. Catechisms are gen- 
erally doctrinal, and the doctrines are often 
formulated in terms which children cannot un- 
derstand, but upon which, in other years, they 
were principally raised. By dint of ear- 
nest and patient labor, the hard words grew 
into them, and the hard doctrines became as- 
similated with the first conditions of character, 
until it is noteworthy that the children who 
were raised on the hard catechism and cold 



70 The Cliild in the Midst; 



Sunday-dinners developed into the strongest, 
tlie grandest, and the highest Christian man- 
hood. In those good old days, the qnestion- 
boohs and catechisms formed the unchange- 
able basis of religious instruction — were used 
in the Sunday-schools, by pastors and parents, 
in the Church and around the fireside, and 
constituted the unvarying staple of study and 
thought for rich and poor, parent and child, 
out of which grew the religious life and the 
moral and social customs of the people. True, 
the Christian life formed upon the old Puri- 
tan catechism was very severe in its practical 
piety, and austere in its spirit ; but better that 
than the lax morality and the licensed licen- 
tiousness of the present day. When the Rev. 
John Eliot, the great apostle to the Indians, 
was pastor of a Church in Roxbury, Mass., in 
1674, he left this record : "In 1674, 6th, 10th 
month. This day we restored a primitive prac- 
tice for ye training up of our youth" — and 
then described the assembling "every Sab- 
bath, after morning service," of the children 
to be examined by the elders "in the cate- 
chism, and in v\'hatever else may convene." 
In the same year " the Church in Norwich, 
Connecticut Colony," to check the "great de- 



Or, The S inula i/^scJiool of To-day. 71 

gree of dangerous neglects of that which 
ought to be for the prevention of apostasie," 
entered into a solemn coyenant, the first clause 
of which was as follows : " That our children 
shall be brought up in the admonition of the 
Lord ; as in our families, so in piihlick : that 
all the males who are eight or nine years of 
age shall be presented before the Lord in his 
congregation every Lord's-day to be catechised, 
until they be about thirteen years of age." 
From these facts we infer that more than two 
hundred years ago the New England Churches 
were trying to restore what they considered 
then "a primitive practice" of instructing 
children in the catechism, and recognizing the 
claims of "the child in the midst" to all the 
rights and privileges of a catechumen in the 
Church of God. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Pastoral Instruction of Children. 

" Is there a written report of the number and 
state of the Sunday-schools, and of the ijasfo}xd 
instruciion of cliildren?'' was once a question 
which the pastor had to answer in each Quar- 
terly Conference of the Church. The ques- 



72 The Child in the Midst; 

tioii was doubtless intended to cover tlie pas- 
toral duties to children treated of in the pre- 
ceding chapter, and implied other methods o£ 
instructing children than the usual Sunday- 
school methods. It was intended to obtain from 
the pastor an official statement of his personal 
pastoral instruction of children other than 
wdiat he or any one else might do for them in 
the Sunday-school; supposing that every pas- 
tor w^ould adojot some plan by which to in- 
struct the children of his charge "in the nat- 
ure, design, privileges, and obligations of their 
baptism." But, alas ! too many pastors are 
content v/ith what they and others can do in 
the Sunday-school and regular Church-service. 
Many pastors have adopted the plan of form- 
ing the children into a Bible-class, over which 
the pastor presides, and which he meets at a 
convenient time and place, say Sunday or Sat- 
urday afternoon. Some make it the children's 
Bible-service. By this means they hope to 
store their minds and hearts with the treasures 
of God's word, and bring them to the knowl- 
edge and love of the same, and to an active 
participation in the public worship of the 
sanctuary. By recitative Bible-readings, and 
simple talks, and illustrations of the lesson, 



Or, The Sundaij-scliool of To-day, 73 

they hope to stimulate them to "" search the 
Scriptures," and " lay up the words of God in 
their heart, and in their soul, and to keep 
them in the midst of their heart." This is a 
good plan when conducted by good hands. 
Not every pastor can make it successful. It 
requires great diversity in the methods of con- 
ducting it, as do all other meetings conducted 
exclusively for children. "What is called "a 
Sunday-school concert" has been adopted and 
extensively used in some parts of this country 
as a means of instructing children. When 
properly conducted, it is both flexible and 
fruitful. In some places it is a very popular 
religious service for the young, and awakens 
very general interest in the Church. Of its 
origin and history comparatively littla is 
known, even to those who now successfully use 
it as a means of religious instruction. It per- 
haps originated in the custom of holding a 
monthly concert of prayer for Sunday-schools 
adopted by many Sunday-schools in the East- 
ern States more than half a century ago, and 
which was given a national prominence in 
September, 1824, tlirough its recommendation 
by the Board of Managers of the American 
Sunday-school Union. As now conducted, the 



74 The Child in the Midst; 

name " Sunday-scliool concert" is a misnomei 
and misleading. It is more properly "the 
children's monthly meeting for worship," in 
which the pastor is brought face to face with 
"the child in the midst," preaches to him, and 
makes him the preacher of to-day, interpret- 
ing for us the kingdom of heaven through the 
heart and life of a little child. Some Churches 
haye dropped the "concert" feature, and call 
it "Missionary Sunday," "Missionary Meet- 
ing," "Children's Day," " Children's Church," 
and by other similar titles, to describe the 
method adopted by the pastor for "' the relig- 
ious instruction of children" as a supplement 
to the work of the parent and the Sunday-school. 
The utility and propriety of such a service would 
not be questioned but for the latent heresy in 
the Church as to the religious capabilities of 
childhood — a heresy which placed the disciples 
between Jesus and the little children, and 
brought a divine rebuke upon those who would 
hinder them, and a rich revelation of the king- 
dom of God to the world in the familiar words, 
"Suffer the little children to come unto me, 
and forbid them not; for of such is the king- 
dom of God." 

When we remember that the Church of the 



Or, The Snndai/scJiooJ of To-daij, 75 

future will be composed of the children now 
growing up in our Sunday-schools and fami- 
lies, the obligation upon the present pastors 
and Church to supply this claim of " the child 
in the midst" is imperative. 



CHAPTER IX. 

My Own Plan. 

I WAS never satisfied with the little work I 
could do for children in their homes and in the 
regular Sunday-school; nor have my ordinary 
pulpit ministrations been more satisfactory. 
I always loved children, and, in the early part 
of my ministry, my heart was much drawn out 
toward them as an interesting and impressible 
part of the Church and flock wdiich I was com- 
missioned to feed. Somehow I could not 
reach them in their homes without much em- 
barrassment ; and in the Sunday-school they 
w^ere preoccupied. My conscience was ill at 
ease. "What to do was a serious question. 
Many pastors have been troubled in conscience 
and embarrassed in w^ork by the same facts 
and questions. After revolving the matter 
prayerfully and patiently, my mind settled 



76 The Child in the Midst; 

upon the following plan, and I proceeded to 
carry it out — i. e., to organize the children into 
a distinct class for religious instruction^ to 
meet every Saturday afternoon in the church. 
I made singing a conspicuous part of the exer- 
cises, y/ith the organ accompaniment. At the 
first meeting I wrote down the name of each 
child, its age, residence, and whether baptized 
or not. When I did not know the facts I in- 
quired about the religious status of the parents, 
and possessed myself of all the information I 
could about their religious advantages, incli- 
nations, and habits. I required each child to 
know and repeat vvdth me the Lord's Prayer at 
the opening of each service; to knov/ and re- 
peat with me the Apostles' Creed at the close 
of each service. My plan was to sing several 
songs while they were assembling, then stand 
and sing, kneel and pray, repeating the Lord's 
Prayer ; then sing again, then talk to them 
familiarly about any thing that would interest 
them, and make them answer back — the wea- 
ther, the day, the Church ; tell about some 
sick child, or tell some incident from child- 
life, or a little, short, pleasant story, something 
that would interest and please them ; then 
sing, then take up the lesson, reading from 



Or, The Sunday-scliool of To-day, 11 

the Scriptures a few passages bearing on the 
subject of the lesson, and proceed to catechise 
them in a familiar way, stopping now and then 
for a song, and never keeping them over an hour. 
When the class is first organized,^ and for 
several succeeding meetings, I make the Ten 
Commandments the basis and body of instruc- 
tion, until the children become so familiar 
with them that they can repeat them by num- 
ber forward and backward and skipping as 
fast as the numbers can be called. I do not 
require them to repeat the reasons, the prom- 
ises, the particulars, or the penalties annexed 
to any of the commandments. They must 
know them; but in this catechism it is best not 
to repeat more than the briefest form of the 
commandment, thus: 

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 

2. Thou shalt not make unto thyself any 
graven image. 

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord 
thy God in vain. 

4. Eemember the Sabbath-day to keep it 
holy. 

5. Honor thy father and thy mother. 

6. Thou shalt not kill. 

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 



78 The Child in the Midst; 

8. Tlion slialt not steal. 

9. Tlion slialt not bear false witness. 

10. Thou slialt not covet. 

This form of the commandments is simple, 
and easy to be remembered by small children. 
I teach them the history, nature, and design 
of the commandments, how to keep them, and 
wdiat it is to break them, and illustrate the 
lesson by every-day incidents from child-life. 
For instance, I begin with the question: 

"What is sin?" 

Answer. "The transgression of the law of 
God." 

I give them this answer, and make them re- 
peat it over and over until they not only know 
it, but until it becomes inwrought into their 
very being, and they can never forget it. The 
next question is : 

"What is a Christian?" 

Answer. " One who loves God, and keeps his 
commandments." 

This question and answer are repeated in 
the same way, and to the same extent of famil- 
iarity. I then proceed about after the follow- 
ing form: 

" Suppose I say I love God, and yet break 
his commandments, am I a Christian?" 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 79 

"No, sir." 

" Suppose Johnny should say that he loves 
Jesus, and yet he goes fishing on Sunday, does 
he break any commandment?" 

" Yes, sir." 

"Which?" 

"The fourth." 

"What is the fourth?" 

" Eemember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." 

"Well, what is sin?" 

" The transgression of the law of God." 

" You see, then, how that Johnny commits 
sin and becomes a sinner." 

"What is a Christian?" 

" One who loves God, and keeps his com- 
mandments." 

" Charley, with books and lunch, started for 
school one morning at the usual hour, but he 
got with some bad boys, and instead of going 
to school he staid out and played all day. At 
the usual time for school to close he slipped 
home, threw down his books, and went off to 
play as if he had been studying hard all day, 
even forgetting to kiss his mother. What do 
you call that kind of conduct, boys? " 

" Playing ' truant,' ' hookey.' " 

"What?" 



80 The ChUd in the Midst; 

"^Truant; ^lookey.' " 

"Well, noAv, let's see: Charlie had a good 
day, yon think; lots of fun, did he? " 

"Do n't know." "No, sir." 

"No, yon don't know. But now tell me, 
how many commandments did he break? " 

"Two." 

"Which two?" 

"The fifth and ninth." 

"What is the fifth?" 

" Honor thy father and thy mother." 

"What is the ninth?" 

" Thou shalt not bear false witness." 

"Yes; but Charley did not say that he had 
been to school." 

"No; hwi lie acted ar 

" Then, a boy can act a falsehood without 
saying a word, can he? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" How many sins did Charley commit that 
day?" 

"Two." "Do n't know." 

" No, you do n't know; but we know that he 
broke two commandments; and any boy who 
will play ' hookey ' will be apt to say bad words, 
and do many other bad things. You see, 
now, how easy it is to break God's holy com- 



Or, The Simdai/school of To-day, 81 

mandments, and liow you can tell the good or 
bad of every thing you do by the command- 
ments." 

"What is sin?" 

" The transgression of the law of God." Q 

"What is a Christian?" 

" One who loves Godj and keeps his com- 
mandments." 

"Sing." 

This is a sample of the way I take children 
through the commandments. In the same 
way we go through the Apostles' Creed, the 
life of Jesus, and into the life of faith and 
love, with a profusion of songs and stories 
from child-life ; and many of them grow up to, 
be the best Christians in the Church. 

I began this method of religious instruction 
in Kansas City, Mo., in 1861; then in Inde- 
pendence, Mo., in 1862. I began again in St. 
Joseph in 1865, and continued till 1868; then 
in Hannibal, in 1869; iza St. Charles, in 1870; 
and First Church, St. Louis, in 1871. It is 
not too much to say that hundreds of children 
were brought to Christ and into the Church 
by this means. Many of them are bright and 
shining lights; some are preachers, and some 
are preachers' wives, and some have fallen on 
6 



82 The Child in the Midst; 

sleep. I expect to meet a host of them be- 
yond the "pearly gates," and see them in that 
beautiful world, " safe in the arms of His in- 
finite love." 



CHAPTER X. 

The Childken's Class. 

My first object was to organize the baptized 
children of the Church into a class convenient 
for religious instruction and recognize them as 
catechumens. This was the only feasible plan 
that I could adopt to meet the special claims 
of the children upon pastoral instruction; and 
if my ministry has been successful with any 
one class of people more than another, it has 
been successful with the children in bringing 
them to Christ and into the experience and 
practice of a Christian life. 

With the class of children organized and in- 
terested, the pastor has opportunities of use- 
fulness measured only by the possibilities of 
childhood; but his success will largely depend 
upon his ability to understand the conditions, 
the aptitudes, and the daily habits of child- 
hood. The study of child-nature, child-life, 
child-thought, child-feelings, and child-want, 



Or^ The Sinidcnj-scJiooI of To-day. 83 

as comprehended in the word cliildhood, will be 
the most deeply interesting text-book of the 
pastor's life, which he can study successfully 
only out of his own heart. Some truths are 
reasoned out, and some truths are felt out. So 
of some natures. One may reason of child- 
hood never so wisely and well, but he can un- 
derstand childhood only through his own heart. 
The man who can bring his mind to the level 
of a child's mind may " speak as a child, un- 
derstand as a child, and think as a child; " but 
the man whose heart is in sympathy with the 
child's heart, who enters into a child's feelings, is 
touched with its grief, moved by its tears, and 
thrilled with its joys, and whose nature is warm- 
ly responsive to all the changing phases of the 
child's nature, will not only understand and 
appreciate childhood, but, reaching the child's 
nature through his own sympathies, he can 
win the child's heart to himself, lead the child 
to Christ, and mold its plastic nature into the 
likeness and image of Him who took a little 
child and set him in the midst of his disciples, 
and through him translated for us the kingdom 
of heaven. Place such a man in the relation 
of pastor to children, let him organize them 
into a class for religious instruction, and he 



84 The Child in the Midst; 

will become as a little cliild and bring the 
Christ-life into the child-life, and make this 
work with children the sweetest part of his min- 
istry. Looking back over a ministry of m.ore 
than twenty-five years, it is cold and tame to 
say that my work with the children is the rich- 
est, the sweetest, and the divinest, in its min- 
istries upon my own heart and life. It is the 
flower-garden of God's life and love blossom- 
ing out in child-life and love, shedding the 
sweetest perfumes of innocence and purity 
upon my heart, and with happy faces and 
changeful forms making bright and beautiful 
the long, hard years of toil in the Master's 
vineyard. 

The children's class affords the pastor the 
opportunity of child-culture in manners as well 
as morals. The stories taken from child-life 
may often be turned to good account in cor- 
recting the bad habits of boys and girls in the 
play-house, on the play-ground, at home, and 
abroad. The principles and precepts of Chris- 
tianity may be thus inwrought with the earliest 
sentiments and habits of children, so that 
Christianity will become not only the founda- 
tion of moral character, but also the educating 
force in the every-day social and domestic life 



Or, The Sunday -scliool of To-day, 85 

of the people. But while this may be impor- 
tant in its place, the children's class will fall 
short of its highest and best design if it does 
not do for the children what the class-meeting 
does for adults — cultivate the grace and growth 
of Christian experience. If the pastor, with 
discretion, will sometimes hold a regular class- 
meeting with the children, question them one 
by one about their *^ state," inquire simply for 
their experience in grace, using terms which 
they can understand, he will not only know 
how they do, but will often find the most touch- 
ing and satisfactory experiences of grace in 
conversion and help in trouble that he ever 
heard. Four little children one day in their 
play said, '* Let's play Church." All agreed, 
and they soon arranged which one should 
preach, which should read, which should pray, 
and that all should sing. When they kneeled 
dow^n to pray, one little girl began to cry and 
sob like her heart would break, and then 
another. The mother called the first one that 
cried to her and asked, " What is the matter, 
my child? " The little girl sobbed out, "0 1 
am such a sinner!" The Christian mother 
thought awhile, and then discerned the Spirit 
of God upon the hearts of her children. She 



86. The Cldldin the Midst; 

called tlieni to lier, talked with tliem only as a 
mother can, prayed for them, and the next 
Sunday presented them to the pastor for mem- 
bership in the Chnrch, feeling assured that 
they were converted to Christ. 

When the children of my class give evidence 
of a '' desire to flee from the wrath to come, 
and to be saved from their sins," I take their 
names as candidates for membership in the 
Chnrch, just as I do adults. With the consent 
of their parents, I take them under very careful 
training for that im^Dortant step. I explain 
the nature of the vows, question them about 
their experience and habits, teach them the 
w^ay of life more ]3erfectly; and when I am sat- 
isfied that they are proper subjects, I bring 
them before the congregation and receive them 
into the Church in due form, as I do any other 
candidates. 

A few weeks since I had a class of sixteen 
children, their ages ranging from eight to fif- 
teen. After the children's service Sunday aft- 
ernoon, I took them into my study, explained 
to them the nature of the vows, and then sent 
all but one out of the room so that the presence 
of others could not influence the examination, 
and I asked that one, and then the others, about 



Or, The Sundaij'School of To-day. 87 

these questions: *'Wliy do you desire to join 
the Church?" "Why do you desire to be a 
Christian?" "Did you ever feel that you are 
a sinner — £eel guilty before God?" "Did 
you pray to Jesus ?^' "Did he forgive your 
sins?" "How do you know?" "Did he change 
your heart so that you love him better than 
every thing else?" "Do you hate anyone?" 
"What do you do when you sin? " "Why do 
you believe that he does forgive? " These and 
similar questions called out each child's expe- 
rience. They were formally received into the 
Church the next Sunday. 



CHAPTER XI. 

The Co-opekation of Paeents. 

In this work the pastor must have the cordial 
co-operation of the parents. Without the aid 
of parental authority and the supporting sym- 
pathy of the home-life, the pastor will have an 
uphill business of it. Wliile the exercises of 
the children's class should be made as attract- 
ive and pleasant as possible to the children 
themselves, yet if children see that their par- 
ents do not approve of it, are indifferent to it, 



The Child in tJie Midst; 



and have little or no sympathy with it, no pas- 
tor can long hold the children^ unless it be in 
exceptional cases. Sometimes the child's in- 
terest will overcome all adverse influences, 
even to positive opposition. But this fact, 
as an exception to the rule, only proves more 
strongly the value of hearty and cordial co- 
operation upon the part of parents. Rightly 
considered, the pastor's work with the children 
is only a valuable co-operation vvdth the parents 
in the work of training their children in ^'the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord.'" No pas- 
tor, no teacher, no Sunday-school, no church, 
can take the place of the parent in this work, 
and meet the parentis obligation to train his 
child for God and heaven. They may all help 
the parent, but they cannot take his place. 

In the beginning of this work for the children, 
in any pastoral charge, I always explain my 
j3lan and purposes to the congregation, appoint 
a meeting for the children, invito the pi^sence 
and invoke the aid of all the parents. The 
meetings are generally Avell attended by grown 
people, and not unfrequently they are pro- 
nounced the most interesting and profitable 
services of the Church. Earely do. x^arents 
become offended and vrithdraAV their children; 



0)% The Sundaij-school of To-daij, 89 

wlien they do, it is usually because they do not 
attend the meetings, but listen to perverted 
statements of mischief-makers who prefer evil 
to good. Even this has not occurred more than 
once in a ministry of over tv/enty-five years. 
I state this fact as an evidence of the gener- 
al approval of the plan and methods of relig- 
ious instruction which have been so successful 
in the salvation of children. Some i)lan for 
the special instruction of children v/as adopted 
and practiced by the Church in the days of the 
apostles, and continued through all the early 
ages of the Church. Parents sought the help 
of the ChuTch, and the Church, seeing "the 
child in the midst," appointed deacons, or 
other suitable persons, to assist the pastors in 
the religious instruction of the children of the 
congregation. These assistant teachers were 
called catecJusts, from which w^e have the word 
catechism; and the children so instructed Avere 
called catechumens. This work of instructing 
the children Avas done apart from the congre- 
gation, in a separate room, and at a different 
time. Where the number of children was 
large, several catechists Avere appointed to take 
charge of their instruction, with the pastor, 
or some experienced catechist, to superintend 



90 The Child in the Midst; 

them. Clement was sncli a superintendent at 
Alexandria, in Egypt; arid possibly Gains at 
Derbe, Aristarclius at Thessalonica, and others 
who are set down as helpers of the apostles. 
Here is the modern Sunday-school idea grow- 
ing out of the custom of the Apostolic Church 
in catechising children, Avhich custom was re- 
vived by the reformers of the sixteenth century, 
and which Luther considered to be of equal 
value with preaching the gospel. He says: 
" Next to preaching, teaching is the greatest, 
and best, and most useful vocation; and I am 
not quite sure which of the two is the better, 
for it is hard to reform old sinners, with whom 
the preacher has to do, while the young can be 
made to bend without breaking." Surely, the 
parent's obligation to provide for this work, as 
well as to co-operate with the pastor, is equal 
to his responsibility for the character of his 
child, and to the possibilities of good to the 
character, conduct, and destiny of his child. 
The salvation of the children and the future 
of the Church are involved in this particu- 
lar work, whether it be done in the regular 
Sunday-school, in the plan of catechising 
children in classes, in special children's serv- 
ice, or in the family. In all or in some of 



0)\ The S undo [/school of To-day. 91 

these ways, it must he done. Better in all of 
them. 

The general neglect of this important Avork 
in the family, and the substitution of a loose 
family goverment for the old-time catechet- 
ical instruction of children, appeal with ever- 
increasing voice to the pastors and parents who 
are alive to this work. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Sunday-school and its Methods. 

The methods adopted by the Sunday-schools 
of the present day can be discussed in this lit- 
tle work only so far as they are made to sub- 
stitute the parental and pastoral instruction of 
children. As elsewhere stated, the Sunday- 
school and its methods w^ere never intended to 
take the place of the parent, nor to do the 
work of the pastor. Sunday-school fiiethods 
must of necessity be very general in the prep- 
aration, study, and application of the lesson, 
leaving the element of personal religion largely 
to the teacher, and never taking that feature 
of religious instruction from the parent and 
the pastor. In view of this element of personal 



92 The Child in the Midst; 

religion, who teaclies your cliilclren? Some 
one who can read off the printed questions, 
and hear the children read off the printed 
answers? Is that all? It is something, just 
as it is something for a child to attend Sunday- 
school and do nothing but look on. Better that 
than not be there at all. But does it meet the 
obligations of religious instruction? How 
much of truth, of Christ, of God, will be formed 
in the child's consciousness and character by 
this method? Nor is this kind of teaching so 
rare in our Sunday-schools as some suppose. 
It is sufficiently common to demand the atten- 
tion of parents and pastors, especially those 
who are depending upon the Sunday - school 
for the religious instruction of their children. 
The teacher may not be a Christian at all, and 
can neither feel the highest obligation nor per- 
form the highest functions of a teacher. Does 
this possibility awaken any serious concern in 
the hearlS of the parents who have turned over 
the religious instruction and nurture of their 
children to the Sunday-school? If not, why 
not? Should not parents be interested enough 
in a work which involves the vital interests of 
their children, for time and eternity, to inquire 
into the character and qualifications of those 



Or, The Snndau-schod of To-day. 93 

to wliom this work is committed? There is 
utterly a fault here, fatal and far-reaching. 
Not one fault, but many. The man who will 
ride four miles to his farm three times a week 
to look after his fine colts, and will not go three 
blocks to the day-school once a year, nor two 
blocks to the Sunday-school, to look after his 
children, how they are growing in knowledge 
and in "the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord," may try to relieve his conscience by the 
playful jest on the comparative value of children 
and colts, but the obligation remains the same, 
and the character of his children will be formed 
upon his neglect that may tell disastrously upon 
his destiny and theirs. 

As a means of religious instruction for chil- 
dren it may be gravely questioned whether the 
present system of preparing the Sunday-school 
lesson could not be improved. The selection 
of lessons under a rigid international lesson 
system, and the great profits derived from the 
Sunday-school publications which grow out of 
the system, and seem to form a necessary part 
of it, may, and perhaps do, favor the dilution 
of saving truth, and the shilly-shally prepa- 
ration of the lessons which liberalizes Christ 
out of his gospel and personal, practical relig- 



94: Tlie Child in the Midst; 

ion out of the Sunday- school. The system is 
responsible for these evils, rather than the men 
who work it. And yet the modern Sunday- 
school methods which have grown out of the 
international system have accomplished so 
much good, and in so many ways, that the 
evils referred to, serious as they are^ may be 
charged to the abuses of the system and its 
perversion to the money-loving and money- 
getting designs of some who have taken ad- 
vantage of it for their own gains. Bad men 
can deprave the best systems, corrupt even the 
Church of God, and deceive the very elect. 
But those of us who are mainly concerned for 
the religious training of children and the spir- 
itual life of the Church, cannot be indifferent 
to the abuses of a system which substitutes 
husks for food and sillabub for the bread of 
life. Never before has the Church so ear- 
nestly demanded a pure, strong gospel from 
the pulpit, and the direct, pointed, person- 
al, practical gospel taught in the Sunday- 
school. Clement said, "A good life is begun 
in catechising." But the catechism must be 
good to start with, and the spiritual food upon 
which the character is to grow and enlarge 
for future usefulness must be pure, good, 



Or, Tlie SundaU'School of To-day, 95 

and strong. A pure, practical Sunday-school 
literature is much easier to prepare than the 
lesson - papers for the teachers and classes. 
This work is much like Christian growth — 
ever approximating but never reaching per- 
fection. Both the lesson system and the 
methods of preparing the lessons may be im- 
proved in the future. 



CHAPTER XIII, 

Sunday-school Literature. 

" The child in the midst " has influenced mod- 
ern literature more than has the telegraph. 
Half a century ago there were not half a dozen 
children's books known to the reading-public; 
now a collection of books for children would 
make the largest library in the world. Out- 
side of the Bible, ancient history rarely men- 
tions the influence and deeds of childhood. 
From Herodotus, Berosus, Xenophon, and 
Tacitus, the world would scarcely know that 
there were such beings as children in those 
days. Where are the lines about children in 
Homer and Virgil ? How much of the ethics 
of Confucius, Socrates, and Plato, are founded 



96 The Child in the Midst; 

in cliildliood, and applicable to cliild-life? 
Plato wrote about cliildliood, but not to chil- 
dren. He noticed them because they will 
come to be men and women. Confucius teach- 
es great reverence for motherhood, but few 
precepts for childhood. The artists and poets 
of earlier days had little use for children. 
Murillo, among the old masters, was the only 
artist of his day who made childhood a prom- 
inent subject for his brush. His "St. John" 
is said to be an ideal Childhood, and his 
"Beggar-boys" are famous for being true to 
Boy-life. Shakespeare, the primus of English 
poetry, has only one well-develo]oed boy-char- 
acter, and Milton had no use for children. 
Amid the multitude of characters in the ro- 
mances of Swift, Fielding, De Foe, and Sir 
Walter Scott, scarcely a little face appears; 
while the greatest poets and novelists of our 
day brighten their ideal world and homes with 
as many happy little faces as are in our real 
homes. 

Christianity, as interpreted to us in the 
child-life of Jesus, and represented in the 
sacred history, poetry, and ethics of the Bible, 
has wrought this wonderful change in the 
popular literature of the day, and flooded the 



Or, Tlie Sunday-scliool of To-day, 97 

world with a distinct literature for cliildren, in 
books, magazines, papers, and paragraphs, 
equal to the literature for any other class. No 
fact of the present day is more significant of 
progress toward a higher civilization, and a 
purer Christianity. Our age is studying 
Christianity in the child-life of Joseph, and 
Moses, and David, and Samuel, and Jesus, and 
John, and Timothy, and "the child in the 
midst " all through the Old and the New Tes- 
tament history, until our thoughts and theo- 
ries, our language and literature, grow out of 
this simpler and intenser view of the kingdom 
of God. We have learned that childhood is an 
element not to be left out of the structure of 
society, nor to be ignored by our literature, nor 
to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven. 

While Christianity as preached to us by a 
little child has made necessary a distinct lit- 
erature, it has done another service for the 
world, indirectly in this line, which will never 
be fully appreciated. In Sparta and other 
Greek cities, in pagan Rome, and among many 
savage tribes, it was a common custom to de- 
stroy small, deformed, and unhealthy children 
as soon as they were born. This horrible cus- 
tom is practiced now in many heathen lands 
7 



98 The Child in the Midst; 

•\vliere Christ is not named and known; but 
Christianity put a stop to the barbarism, and 
saved to the world many of its brightest lights 
and greatest geniuses. Spinoza was frail; 
Malebranche, deformed; Byron, club-footed; 
Akenside, halting; Sam. Johnson, disfigured; 
Sir Walter Scott, "a pining child;" Sir Isaac 
Newton could have been put into a quart- 
cup; Voltaire was too small to be christened; 
Goethe, Victor Hugo, and D'Alembert, were 
so weak at birth that they were not expected 
to live; Charles Sumner w^eighed but three 
pounds and a-half ; Pope, Descartes, Gibbon, 
Kepler, Lord Nelson, Wren, Watt, Howard, 
Irving, Wilberforce, and many others who 
rose to greatness and renown in literature, 
science, philosophy, and philanthropy, were of 
such bodily weakness in infancy as would have 
marked them in any but a Christian land as 
unv/orthy to be raised to manhood. Burton, 
in his "Anatomy of Melancholy, " says, "How 
many deformed princes, philosophers, and or- 
ators could I reckon up! " 

The wonderful success of a distinct litera- 
ture for children has created a mania for child- 
stories not altogether healthful to morals and 
religion. Among the greatest of the many 



Or, The Sunday-scliool of To-dai^f. 99 

tilings is tlie "dime noyel." It is destructive 
of moral principle, personal purity, and good 
character; it is the bane of modern literature, 
and ought to be legislated out of existence 
along with obscene pictures. Many of the il- 
lustrated monthlies, weeklies, and story-books 
have the same tendencies as the dime novel, 
but in a modified form. These evils increase 
the necessity for a sound, healthy Sunday- 
school literature. In this age boys and girls 
will read. If we do not furnish them good 
books, they will get bad books ; if we do not sup- 
ply them with religious literature, they will 
supply themselves with immoral literature. 
Indeed, where the taste is so easily and quick- 
ly vitiated, eternal vigilance is the price of 
purity. Pastors and parents should keep a se- 
vere surveillance upon Sunday-school libraries 
and literature, and admit no moral poison, un- 
der any disguise, to the minds of children 
through that channel. If the tastes of our 
children must be depraved, and their con- 
sciences debauched by vicious publications, 
let us see to it that it is not done through the 
"catechetical and theological school of the 
Church." Some years ago the attention of 
the Church was aroused to the possibilities of 



100 The Child in the Midst. 

nntolcl eyils from this qnarter, and now for the 
past seyeral years the tone of Sunday-school 
books and papers has perceptibly improved. 
Let the vigilance of the Church, and the purity 
and power of childhood, demand greater im- 
provement still, until our children shall have 
a pure literature in a pure language. 



PART THREE, 



CHAPTER I. 

Sunday-school Conventions. 

THE child in the midst" has called the 
Sunday-school workers of every Chris- 
tian country together, and organized them 
into conventions for mutual counsel and 
help. This is a modern movement of mar- 
velous utility. Conventions, or conferences, 
of those engaged actively in this work have 
stimulated, organized, and extended the, work 
of Sunday-schools, and developed plans for 
the religious instruction of children, as much 
as any other agency, if not more. The 
greatest and the best men of Europe and 
America have recognized their utility, and 
contributed of their presence and services 
to their success. When two men who are 
engaged in the same work, and animated 
by the same object, meet together and talk 
over their plans and purposes, explain their 
methods, speak of their difficulties and their 
successes, and each makes the experience of 

(101) 



102 The Child in the Midst; 

the other his own pro]3erty, it is a conference, 
or convention, by which both are benefited, 
and in which suggestions are made and plans 
formed for more efficient work in the future. 
Men recognize this principle of mutual help 
in every business, and in every department of 
life; and nowhere has it been more success- 
ful than in the Sunday-school v/ork of this 
country. 

More than fifty years ago the Sunday-school 
concert suggested union mass-meetings; these 
meetings called local conventions of active 
workers for the discussion of plans, the com- 
parison of methods, and for mutual counsel 
and help. The local convention gave such ad- 
ditional interest and inspiration to the work 
that county conventions were called; then 
State, then national, then international con- 
ventions were formed; and through these con- 
ventions States, counties, townships, and civil 
districts have been organized for more general 
and efiicient work among the children and the 
destitute communities. The American Sun- 
day-school Union led off in this work of organ- 
ization, and the leading Sunday-school men of 
all the Churches fell into line and cooperated 
so efficiently that the organization of the Sun- 



Or, The SHudaij-^cliod of To-daij, 103 

day-school work through conventions has al- 
most swallowed up the American Snnday- 
school Union, and put the Sunday-school work 
upon a broader and higher basis even than 
that great union organization — not that the 
American Sunday-school Union has been de- 
stroyed, or made less efficient, but that it has 
become only a factor in this more extended 
and more general organization. Local Church- 
es and large denominations, which would not 
cooperate with tlie American Sunday-school 
Union except under protest, either expressed 
or implied, have gone into these Sunday-school 
conventions, and become the most aggressive 
factors in them. The standing excuse for 
keeping out of them— that each denomination 
can best do its own work in its own way — has 
been swept away by the rising tide of cooper- 
ative power generated in the great interna- 
tional conventions, and crystalized into the 
international lesson system sent down to tlie 
Sunday-schools of all the Christian world. It 
is an organized power, which concentrates the 
ripest knowledge of all the wisest workers of 
Christendom, and transmits it to the most 
obscure Sunday-school of the land in proper 
form, prepared to suit their capacity and their 



104 The Child in the Midst; 

denominational inclinations. These conven- 
tions have not only given ns the benefit of the 
international system of lessons, bnt the multi- 
form helps that have grown out of it in the 
form of quarterlies, commentaries, magazines, 
lesson-papers, object-lessons, illustrations, les- 
son-notes, books and Sunday-school papers 
without number, which constitute a distinct 
literature, growing out of the international 
lesson s^^stem, and reaching every Sunday- 
school in Christendom. This distinct liter- 
ature, from the international lesson to the 
simplest sheets for the smallest children, pre- 
pared by the Sunday-school department of 
each Church, may become as distinctly denom- 
inational as that Church may desire, or may 
be as undenominational as those who prepare 
it may elect. 

To say that the system of conventions has 
accomplished only this much for the Sunday- 
school cause, would be saying a great deal, but 
not as much as can truthfully be said for 
them. They have sent agents into the field to 
organize Sunday-schools in destitute places, 
directed, and supported them, thus doing the 
most important and profitable missionary 
evils that have eTown out of this new order of 



0}\ Tiie Siindau-school of To-day, 105 

work; and this, too, without interfering with 
denominational work. They stimulate denom- 
inational work in the home mission-field. They 
have brought the various denominations closer 
together, kindled a warmer Christian feeling, 
promoted Christian fellowship and mutual co- 
operation to such an extent as either to destroy 
or greatly modify the sectarian spirit of the 
Churches, and fuse the great Christian heart 
into a sacred unity which will make Chris- 
tianity irresistible for the conversion of the 
world. Men v/ho are not insensible to these 
beneficial effects are still blinded as to the 
cause. Prejudices yield only at the last ditch; 
and they are too blind to see the ditch until 
they are plunged headlong into it. The man 
who still holds out against Sunday-school con- 
ventions presents a curious mental phenome- 
non; and the Church which cuts itself off from 
the inspiration, the expansion, and the coopera- 
tive power derived from them, may gain dis- 
tinction for exclusiveness, and boast of its 
independence, but it will be left high and dry 
in the paltry splendor of artificial righteous- 
ness, or be relegated to the custody of future 
archaeologists. The world moves; the activi- 
ties of the Church demand the widest and the 



106 The Child in the Midst; 

wisest agencies for its ever-enlarging work, 
and personal and sectarian prejudices must 
get out of the way, or be ground to powder. 



CHAP TEE II. 

Sunday-school Coxferexces. 

The term "Conference" has become almost 
exclusively Methodistic. It means "to consult 
together, confer," to interchange views, ex- 
amine things by comparison, and transact busi- 
ness by conference. The term has by usage, 
become the property of Methodism, other 
Churches and other bodies giving us almost 
the exclusive use of it. The term " Conven- 
tion" has, in this country, a political signifi- 
cance by its long use in designating political 
meetings. It also describes a body composed 
of delegates from subordinate bodies repre- 
senting a constituency. Long usage, rather 
than any law, has thus differentiated the terms 
" Convention " and " Conference," giving to one 
a secular meaning, and to the other an eccle- 
siastical meaning. Some Churches still retain 
the word " Convention " to describe their high- 
est ecclesiastical tribunals, or assemblies; but 



Or, The Stindai/scJiOol of To-daj/, 107 

the Metlioclists have appropriated the term 
" Conference," and forever settled their pro- 
prietary claim to it by its use, after discussion, 
to describe the great Ecumenical Conference, 
Henceforth let the term be used to designate 
every assembly of our people for conference 
about Church - work. Instead of Sunday- 
school Conventions, we have Sunday-school 
Conferences. 

If Sunday-school Conventions have resulted 
in good to the cause, as shown in the foregoing 
chapter, our Church and our Sunday-school 
work has largely shared in that good. And 
while many of our preachers and churches 
have declined to go into them, the whole 
Church has derived the benefit of them, by 
adopting the international lessons, by repre- 
sentation on the international committee to 
select the lessons, by representation in the in- 
ternational conventions, and by receiving the 
pulsations of its quickened life, and the expan- 
sion of its grander movement throughout the 
world. No Church can grow so wise and great 
that it may not be benefited by keeping itself 
in active sympathy with the general work of 
united Christendom, whether it be for Sunday- 
schools, missions, or general evangelization. 



108 Tlie Child in the Midst; 

While all tliis and more is true, yet there is a 
sense in which we have not been as wise and 
as enterprising as we might have been. Our 
Sunday-school work is not perfect. In many 
places our schools are imperfectly organized 
and inefficiently operated. In some places we 
have no school at all, and the poor have not 
the gospel preached unto them. Our Sunday- 
school literature is not universall}^ used in our 
schools, and our best methods of organizing 
and conducting schools are unknown to many 
of our people. The best helps for officers and 
teachers, the best plans of study, and methods 
of teaching, the supreme object of all, and the 
proper discipline, spirit, and inspiration of the 
work, with the experiences, observations, and 
suggestions of the active workers in this great 
vineyard, all need to be discussed, compared, 
and utilized to the fullest and farthest extent, 
that the whole Church may reap the benefit in 
the more perfect organization and work of this 
department. How can this be done ? By or- 
ganizing a system of Sunday-school Confer- 
ences, that the active workers may confer 
together, com^oare, discuss, x^lan, enlarge, and 
vitalize the whole vrork, give a more general 
ap]olication to that which is good, ajid utilize 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-daij. 109 

to the fullest extent the experience, the wisdom, 
the helps, and the accessories that may con- 
tribute the more largely and efficiently to the 
general result. If Conferences for Church- 
work are useful, may not Conferences for Sun- 
day-school Avork be useful also? If we must 
have General, Annual, District, Quarterly, and 
Church Conferences for Church-work, why not 
for Sunday-school work? True, we have com- 
mittees on Sunday-schools at these Church 
Conferences, reports from Sunday-schools, and 
resolutions on Sunday-schools, but for the 
most part these committees hunt up statistics, 
report the mathematics, resolve about the lit- 
erature, and the Conference adjourns feeling 
that the Sunday-school cause has been looked 
into. Under this treatment the Sunday-school 
work of our Church can never reach a perfect 
organization, nor a high degree of efficiency. 
In connection with Annual and District Con- 
ferences especially, we should hold Annual and 
District Sunday-school Conferences, to pro- 
mote the great object of Sunday-school work 
by a more perfect organization of Sunday- 
schools in the bounds of the Annual and Dis- 
trict Conferences; to provide helj) for destitute 
places; to suggest methods for the organiza- 



no The Child in the Midst; 

tion, conduct, and discipline of scliools; to dis- 
cuss Sunday-school literature and other helps, 
and how to use them; to apply the best meth- 
ods of study and teaching to all the schools; to 
keep before the Church the distinctive objects 
of all Sunday-school work; to discuss the char- 
acter, qualifications, and functions of superin- 
tendents, officers, and teachers; to interest 
more the officers and active men of the Church 
in the Sunday-school work, and to infuse 
greater zeal and activity in this cause all 
through the Church. Many other interests 
might be discussed, and many other objects 
gained by holding these Conferences that could 
not be reached in any other way. The details 
of Sunday-school work are never touched in 
the Annual Conference, and the best Sunday- 
school talent of the Church is rarely heard or 
felt in the councils of an Annual Conference. 
Our plan of lay representation in the Confer- 
ences has brought to the surface and utilized 
enough of this lay wisdom to convince the 
thoughtful that the talent hid away in napkins, 
or utilized only in a small way and to a limited 
extent, is really much greater than that which 
has been developed. Here and there in an 
Annual Conference v>^e have a conspicuous 



■ Or, The Sinvhvj-^cltool of To-day, 111 

Sunday-school worker in the councils of the 
Church, Y/hen we might have hundreds in each 
Annual Conference if we knew how to bring 
them up and out into the full light and liberty 
of the highest usefulness. Is the Church re- 
sponsible for its undeveloped talent? 



CHAPTER III. 

Annual Sunday-school Conference. 

The Annual Sunday-school Conference should 
be held in connection with the Annual Confer- 
ence, at the same time and place. Its delib- 
erations should require at least one day and 
night, to be called " Sunday-school Day." It 
should be composed of all the members of the 
Annual Conference, and such others as the 
Conference Board may invite to participate in 
its deliberations. A programme of subjects 
for discussion should be previously prepared 
by the Sunday-school Board, and each subject, 
or topic, given out to some man before the 
session of the Conference, that the speaker 
may have ample time to give the Conference 
his maturest thoughts on the subject. In 
every other respect the session should be con- 



112 ■ Tlie Child in the Midst; 

ducted as tlie session of the Annual Confer- 
ence is conducted, witli tlie Bishop, or some 
one selected by him, in the chair; and the 
action of this Sunday-school Conference should 
be the action of the Annual Conference on the 
subject of Sunday-schools: i^rovided, that the 
appointment of a member of the Annual Con- 
ference to be Sunday-school agent, or secre- 
tary, and any other action affecting the work 
of a member of the Annual Conference, should 
be reported to the Annual Conference for its 
concurrence. Any one can see how that the 
discussion of topics, and the deliberations of 
the whole Annual Conference, and others that 
might be brought in, for a whole day, closing 
up at night with a Sunday-school mass-meet- 
ing, or something of the sort, would, in a short 
while, develop and perfect the Sunday-school 
work, and give new life to all of its operations. 
In no way could such a Conference accomplish 
more good, perhaps, than by devising ways 
and means for the organization and support of 
Sunday-schools in the destitute parts of the 
Conference. Preachers having charge of mis- 
sions, circuits, stations, and districts cannot 
always do this work. If they could, and 
would, there would be no destitution. But the 



Or, The S^inday-school of To-day. 113 

fact that many places, embracing large areas 
of country, and large numbers of people, have 
no Sunday - schools and no churches, is con- 
clusive that the regular pastors cannot always 
and everywhere supply all the people with the 
gospel. Besides, this is mission - w^ork, and 
must be provided for as such. How does the 
American Sunday-school Union provide for 
this kind of work? By appointing agents to 
do it, and supplying the means of helping the 
schools organized by their agents, and keeping 
them going until they become self-supporting. 
They often use the men and means belonging 
to our Church to do their work, while we stand 
by and say to them. We cannot do this work, 
but we will furnish you the men and means, 
and fuss at you all the time you are doing it. 
The American Sunday-school Union can do no 
work for our people that we cannot do, and 
that we will not do, when we begin to bring 
the necessity for it home to our hearts in the 
discussions of a Sunday-school Conference. 
Why should our Church not preoccupy all 
the mission-fields within our territory, and re- 
claim all the waste-places for Jesus? Others 
will plant Sunday-schools in these places, if 
we do not, and will cultivate the field up to 



114 The CJuId in tlie Midst; 

our very line, and would be glad even to enter 
into our heritage. If we do not occupy tlie 
ground, tliey will, and they ought. We have 
recognized the Sunday-school as the wisest and 
best means of establishing missions for the 
destitute. In our cities we first gather the 
people together and organize them into a Sun- 
day-school, and in this way begin the mission- 
work among the destitute. Out of the Sun- 
day-school will grow the prayer-meeting, the 
occasional preaching, the organization of a 
society, and then the Church, with a local con- 
gregation and a pastor. In this way our home 
missions are started, and upon this plan and 
by this process they grow into self-sustaining 
churches. This kind of work v/ould bring 
the Sunday-school back to its original purpose, 
without abating in the least its great work in 
established churches as the Bible -school of 
the Church. If the mission-work is essential 
to the life of the Church, it is also essential to 
the life of the Sunday-school, for the Church 
and i\\e Sunday-school are one. Let the Con- 
ference take sufficient time to discuss the Sun- 
day-school work in its bounds, and not only 
will the missionary character of Sunday- 
schools appear more fully, but the value of 



Or, The Sundau-school of To-day, 115 

Sunday-schools, as a missionary agency and 
pioneer of the Church, will assume a promi- 
nence unknown before. 

In addition to the missionary feature of Sun- 
day-schools, and their efficiency in reaching 
the destitute with the gospel, the Sunday- 
school Conference might discuss wdth great 
profit the character of our literature, and sug- 
gest, after careful and critical thought, any 
changes in the present forms, style, and adap- 
tation of our Sunday-school publications. For 
instance, put the Magazine into the hands of a 
competent man^ and let him very carefully 
prepare a paper on the character and quality 
of the Magazine, and its adaptation to the X3ur- 
poses for which it is published, criticising its 
matter, its make-up, its style, and suggesting 
any changes that would improve it, enlarge it, 
and increase its usefulness. So of the Qiiar- 
terlijj the Visitor, Our Little PeojjJe, and every 
other publication for the current use of our 
Sunday-schools. Men can be found in each 
Conference fully competent to this task, who 
understand the functions of legitimate criti- 
cism, and would use it to great advantage. 
Such papers, read and discussed in each An- 
nual Sunday-school Conference of the Church, 



116 The Child in the Midst; 

would not only be helpful to tlie editor and 
agent by way of suggestions, but might be- 
come the property of the Sunday-school De- 
partment, and make an annual volume of great 
value to the Church. By such discussion the 
value of our literature would be better known, 
its claims recognized, its circulation extended, 
its defects pointed out, its errors corrected, 
changes and additions suggested that would 
be of great value to this important depart- 
ment of Church -work. Our Advocates and 
Metliodists uniformly commend the Sunday- 
school literature without exceptional criticism. 
Is the literature that emanates from our Sun- 
day-school Department so perfect? Neither 
the editor nor the publisher thinks so. Dis- 
criminating criticism is helpful: let us have it. 
Discussion is healthful: let us have more of it. 
Give us the Annual Sunday-school Confer- 
ence 



CHAPTER IV, 

District Sunday-school Coxference. 

The District Sunday-school Conference should 
meet at the same time and place with the Dis- 
trict Conference. It should be composed of 



Or, The Simdaij-'School of To-day. 117 

all the members of the District Conference, 
and such others as the presiding elder of the 
district, or the committee may call into the 
service of the Conference. Sufficient time 
should be allowed for the Sunday-school Con- 
ference to overhaul and thoroughly discuss 
every interest of the Sunday-school work in 
the bounds of the district. Let a programme 
of topics be prepared, and each topic be given 
out beforehand to some one competent to dis- 
cuss it, and then when the Conference is called 
something will be ready. The Conference it- 
self should limit the time to be consumed by 
each speaker, and the time to be occupied in^ 
its own deliberations. As in the Annual Sun- 
day-school Conference, so in the District Sun- 
day-school Conference, one entire day is not 
too much to be devoted to the consideration 
of the Sunday-school work, closing up at night 
with a mass-meeting, a Sunday-school concert, 
or a popular lecture on some feature of Sun- 
day-school work. 

In the District Sunday-school Conference 
the missionary work of Sunday-schools in its 
application to destitute places can be well dis- 
cussed and provided for. This Conference 
ought to have power to employ agents to or- 



118 The Child in the Midst; 

ganize schools T^^liere tliey are needed; to order 
collections in tlie Sunday-schools and congre- 
gations of the district to help support and 
supply the schools among the destitute, and 
to designate the field of operation for any 
agent that might be employed. Suitable lay- 
men can be found in each district who could 
be induced to spend a short time, say two or 
three months of the year, in this good work, 
and, with a little financial help to be wisely 
used in supplementing the supplies for Sun- 
day-schools, soon have the work thoroughly 
organized, and in successful operation in every 
part of our territory. "What better work for a 
District Conference ? 

How to organize and conduct a Sunday- 
school; hoy/ to open and close; how to study 
and teach; how to organize classes and grade 
them; how to select teachers and instruct 
them; how to hold teachers'-meetings; how to 
teach normal classes ; how to provide for and 
teach primary classes and infant classes; hov/ 
to seat and ornament Sunday-school rooms 
and infant-class rooms; how to select, arrange, 
label, number, and circulate a Sunday-school 
library; hov/ to organize Sunday-schools into 
missionary societies; how to keej) the Secre- 



0)', The Sundcnj-scliool of To-day. 119 

tary's books and make up the statistics; how 
to review the lesson, apply the lesson, use the 
blackboard, introduce strangers, conduct the 
opening and closing exercises, the singing, and 
every other matter of detail in the work of a 
Sunday-school, should be discussed and illus- 
trated as far as possible in the District Sunday- 
school Conference. No part of the practical 
work of a Sunday-school should be omitted. 
When it is understood by every Sunday-school 
superintendent, officer, and teacher in the dis- 
trict that every part of the work of the Sunday- 
school will be overhauled, discussed, and as 
far as possible illustrated by the most experi- 
enced Sunday-school men at the District Con- 
ference, the attendance will not only be largely 
increased, but the beginners, the inexperienced, 
and the ambitious from every neighborhood 
Sunday-school will be there to learn, to think, 
to compare, to expand, to participate, and to 
be inspired for this great work at home. The 
qualifications and functions of superintend- 
ents, the character and qualification of teach- 
ers, the best methods of teaching, and the 
supreme object of all Sunday-school work, 
discussed by experienced men, and the difi*er- 
ent methods of opening and closing the school 



120 The Child hi the Midst j 

illustrated, would send hundreds of officers and 
teachers back to their schools with the knowl- 
edge and the inspiration of the grandest work 
in which laymen and ladies can be engaged. 

The religious servdces at the opening of 
these Conferences should vary from time to 
time, and be made to illustrate the opening 
exercises of the Sunday-school, 

In both the Annual and the District Sunday- 
school Conferences it is important that all the 
vital and practical questions be freely dis- 
cussed, not only by the speakers to whom the 
topics are assigned beforehand, but that the 
utmost freedom of discussion be allowed to all 
within the limitations of time and subjects. 
All the vital and practical questions cannot be 
discussed in one, or in two Conferences, but 
the value of the Conference Avill be not in 
the number of topics discussed^ but in the 
character of the topics and the discussion it- 
self. The effort to crowd too many topics into 
a brief space, and then whip the discussion 
through under the gavel, like a horse-auction, 
has defeated the real work of many conven- 
tions and conferences. To prepare a pro- 
gramme beforehand is wise, but to stereotype 
the Conference is to stultify the Conference; 



Oy, The Sunday-school of To-day, 121 

and to put its deliberations through under 
whip and spur may make it live while it is go- 
ing, but it will strangle the life and substance 
out of its work. It brings nothing to maturity. 
As to a programme of subjects for the An- 
nual and District Sunday-school Conferences, 
the headings to the several chapters of this 
little book will be suggestive. Not a topic 
discussed in these pages, or suggested by the 
discussion, that would not be appropriate for 
the programme of an Annual or a District Con- 
ference. Especially would it be appropriate 
and profitable for the Annual Sunday-school 
Conference to discuss the mission-work, the 
literature, the methods and the object of the 
Sunday-school; the conversion of children, 
the pastoral instruction of children, preaching 
to children, children's services, children's day, 
and the various methods adopted by pastors 
to instruct them in personal and practical god- 
liness, in "the nature, design, privileges, and 
obligations of their baptism," and to prepare 
them to assume the obligations of Church- 
membership. These subjects need to be dis- 
cussed in the presence of our younger preach- 
ers by the wisest heads of the Church, both 
clerical and lay. If for no other purjoose than 



122 The Child in the Midst; 

tlie discussion of the conyersion and the pas- 
toral instruction of children, the Church could 
well afford to have these Conferences. 



CHAPTER F. 

Topics for Sunday-school Conferences. 

Many persons who are charged with the duty 
of preparing a programme for a Sunday-school 
Conference are thankful for suggestions of 
appropriate and profitable topics for discus- 
sion. They know about what features of the 
Sunday-school work they desire to have dis- 
cussed, but if the subjects are formulated in 
terms for them it is very helpful. The value 
of discussion depends so largely upon the 
statement of the subject, that the following 
topics are submitted simply as suggestive of 
what may be stated in better terms, and what 
may be discussed with profit in Sunday-school 
Conferences : 

1. What is a Sunday-school? 

2. The supreme object of Sunday-schools. 
Other objects. 

3. In what sense is the Sunday-school the 
"nursery of the Church? " 



Or, The Siinday •^school of To-day, 123 

» 4. Is tlie Sunday-scliool intended for chil- 
dren only? 

5. What is the truest and highest theory of 
the Sunday-school? 

6. The*relation of the Sunday-school to other 
agencies: (1) To the Church; (2) To the gospel; 
(3) To the poor; (4) To the destitute; (5) To 
social life; (6) To the spread of scriptural holi- 
ness. 

7. The true basis of Sunday-school work, 
and its inspired authority. 

8. The Sunday-school and the conversion of 
children. 

9. The Sunday-school and the spiritual life 
of the Church. 

10. The influence of the modern Sunday- 
school system upon the type of piety in the 
future Church. 

11. Yv'hat will be the type of the future 
Church, the members of which are now in our 
Sunday-schools ? 

12. The pastor's relation to the Sunday- 
school. 

13. The pastor's place; his office; his duty; 
his work. 

14. Should the pastor be the regular teacher 
of a class? 



124 The Child in the Midst; 

15. The pastor's official relation to the chil- 
dren of the Church. 

16. "What is meant by the " pastoral instruc- 
tion of children? " 

17. How can the pastor best "instruct the 
children in the nature, design, privileges, and 
obligations of their baptism? " 

18. How can the pastor fulfill his ministry 
to the children? By instructing them from 
house to house ? or by catechising them in the 
Sunday-school? or by forming them into a 
class as catechumens? or by holding children's 
meetings and preaching to them ? 

19. The benefit of special service for children. 

20. Preaching to children. 

21. What is meant by the incident of " the 
child in the midst? " 

22. Does the Sunday-school take the place 
of the parents in the religious instruction of 
children? Can parents transfer their obliga- 
tions ? 

23. How can parents be induced to take more 
interest in the Sunday-school? 

24. What relation does the Quarterly Con- 
ference sustain to the Sunday-school? 

25. What is meant by a " Board of Mana- 
gers?" 



Oy\ Tlie Sundcnj-school of To-day. 125 

26. How are the official members of the 
Church related to the Sunday-school ? 

27. The model Sunday-school illustrated. 

28. The infant class — its room, teacher, and 
methods. 

29. Primary classes — how to grade and teach 
them. 

30. The superintendent — his character, qual- 
ifications, and functions. 

31. The teacher — his character and qualifi- 
cations. 

32. What other officers does a school need, 
and how should they be chosen? 

33. Literature — the Magazine, the Lesson 
Quarterlies, the Illustrated Lesson Paper, the 
Visitor, Our Little People, and other helps. Do 
they help or hinder? Do they aid the stu- 
dent in acquiring a better knowledge of the 
Holy Scriptures? 

34. The international lesson system — is it 
the best for our schools and Church? 

35. Teachers' - meetings. Normal classes. 
Infant classes. 

36. Mission Sunday-schools — where and how 
to organize them. 

37. The Sunday-school as a missionary 
agency. 



12G The CJuIdin the Midst; 

38. Sunday-scliool agents — how and when to 
employ them. 

39. What is proper territory for mission 
Sunday-schools ? 

40. The Sunday-school as an evangelizing 
agency. 

41. Sunday-schools and popular education. 

42. Sunday-schools and popular skepticism. 

43. Sunday-schools and popular literature. 

44. Sunday-schools and the institutions of 
Christianity. 

45. Sunday-schools and temperance. 

46. Sunday-schools and the conversion of 
the world to Christ. 

47. The value of organized v>^ork. 

48. The advantages of holding frequent Con- 
ferences. 

49. Hov>^ the best methods for Sunday-school 
work can be utilized for the greatest good. 

50. The International Convention, held in 
Atlanta, Ga., April, 1878, had this programme: 
" Theme— Our Work. I. Eeported. II. De- 
fined. III. Furnished. IV. Promoted. I. Be- 
po)'ted: (1) Keioort of executive committee; 
(2) Report of statistical secretary; (3) Eeport 
from States and Provinces; (4) Eeport of in- 
ternational lesson committee. II. Defined: 



Or, The Sandaij-school of To-da;/. 127 

(1) The true basis of Sunday-school work; (2) 
How related to other agencies ; (3) Possibilities 
in the future. III. Fiuiiished: (1) With les- 
sons — ^The uniform lesson; ^The supplemental 
lesson. (2) With workers qualified — ^By knowl- 
edge of work; ^Of methods. IV. Promoted: 
(1) By State and Provincial organization; (2) 
By State conventions and institutes; (3) By 
normal instruction; (4) By Christian love and 
symx3athy." 

CHAPTER ri. 

The Sunday-school Concert. 

ORiGiNxiLLY the Sunday-school concert was a 
monthly meeting for prayer on behalf of Sun- 
day-schools, held in "concert" throughout the 
Eastern and Western States, on the second 
Monday evening, or night, of each month. 
After a time it was changed to Sunday even- 
ing, and the children were called into it to 
do the singing and to hear addresses. The 
original design was changed so as to admit of 
a broader plan and a higher purpose. Like 
other interests of the Sunday-school v/ork, it 
grev/ upon the Church, and expanded into a 
flexible means of providing a s^oecial service 



128 The Child in the Midst; 

for children, and of securing a proper recog- 
nition of their rightful claims upon the min- 
istrations of the gospel. This service has 
passed through various grades of transition 
since it started in the brain of some earnest 
layman, and has reached the position, in some 
sections, of a widely popular and useful relig- 
ious service for the young. It has not only 
been a blessing to children and young people 
by providing them with special gospel serv- 
ices, and recognizing the claims of " the child 
in the midst" to such services, but it has 
benefited the whole Church by stirring and 
warming its heart and life in the Sunday- 
school w^ork. Its speeches, songs, and prayers 
have turned the hearts of the fathers to the 
children, and brought the Sunday-school into 
the pale of the Church, and made it a part of 
the Church. 

What started in a monthly concert of prayer 
for children, is now a most popular and suc- 
cessful meeting of children. It has developed 
the Sunday-school idea into an intelligent, 
well-defined theory of Christian work for the 
conversion of men, and made it the mightiest 
agency for the salvation of the young known 
to the Church. Under its discussions and 



Oi\ The Sunday-school of To-da//, 129 

work cliildren have grown in prominence 
before the Cliurch, new opinions of their 
capacity to love and serve God have been 
formed, and many of them have been con- 
verted and added to the Church. The idea 
and plan of urging the claims of the gospel 
upon the immediate acceptance of children in 
the public congregation, and of expecting their 
conversion to Christ like any other sinners, 
started in the Sunday-school concert, and has 
grown into various forms of special service 
for children with this end in view. As affirmed 
in a previous chapter, the name ** concert," as 
applied to these meetings, is a misnomer, and 
is misleading. It should have another name, 
as it has assumed a wider meaning. 

Each church should devote one •Sunday of 
each month to special service for children, to 
be called "Children's Day," which day should 
close with a popular service of the Sunday- 
school with the Church, such as has usually 
been called a Sunday-school concert. That 
service has not been developed to the fullest 
extent of its usefulness. Suppose we call it 
a Sunday-school mass-meeting, with a view of 
massing the Sunday-school and the Church, 
the parents and. the children, the teachers and 
9 



130 The Child in the Midst; 

the pnpils, together once a month for a united 
service; then, how could such a service be 
made interesting and profitable? About as 
follows : 

1. Let it be held in the audience-room of 
the church. 

2. Let the children occupy the front seats 
with their teachers. 

3. Let suitable songs be selected which the 
children can sing, and about four speakers, to 
occupy ten minutes each, with subjects agreed 
upon and prepared beforehand. Then let the 
exercises follow about in this order: (1) A 
song. (2) A song, all standing. (3) Prayer, 
kneeling, and closing with the Lord's Prayer, 
repeated in concert. (4) A song, sitting. (5) 
Bible-reading, in alternate verses, called re- 
sponsive reading. (6) A song. (7) Address 
— topic. Object of Sunday-schools. (8) A 
song. (9) Address — topic. Character and 
Qualifications of Teachers. (10) A song. (11) 
Address — topic. Parents in the Sunday-school. 
(12) A song. (13) Address — topic. Conversion 
of Children, by the pastor. (14) A prayer. 
(15) A song, and benediction — all occupying 
one hour. 

By varying the subjects from time to time 



Or, The Sunday -school of To-day. 131 

every interest of tlie Sunday - school and 
Clinrcli may be touched up, and by varying 
the speakers much of the latent talent of the 
Church may be developed and utilized. Such 
meetings and discussions may have many of 
the advantages of a local Church Conference. 



CHAPTER VII. 
"Childken's Day." 

Every settled congregation of the Churcli 
should set apart one Sunday in each month 
for the children, to be called " Children's Day." 
Considering the claims of the children upon 
the ministry, their proportion to the whole 
number of the congregation, the fact that no 
provision is made for them in the public wor- 
ship, and that they can find so little in the 
usual sermons and services for adults to inter- 
est and profit them, one-fourth of the Sun- 
day-service of each month is not too much to 
give to the children of the Church. They 
have a right to that much of the Church- 
service, and their religious nurture demands 
that much. "The child in the midst" has 
divine rights in the kingdom of God which 



132 Th- Cliihl ;„ fhrMhhf; 

Jesiis recognized, and wliicli the Church prac- 
tically ignores. Says a recent writer: "Can- 
not children l3e saved? If they are to be 
saved, is it an exception to the rnle that it hath 
^pleased God by the foolishness of preaching 
to save them that believe? ' 'How shall they 
believe on him of whom they have not heard? 
and how shall they hear without a preacher? ' 
Parents may neglect their duty towardv their 
children; 'yea, they may forget.' 'A woman 
may forget her sucking child, that she should 
not have compassion on the son of her womb,' 
yet would not God leave such home-neglected 
little ones without hope, nor cause that theii' 
teeth should be set on edge because of the 
sour grapes that their fathers have eaten. 
Hence it is that he hath sent embassadors, with 
a message as to the right, to ' every creature' 
out of the way, and has declared that 'the 
priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they 
should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the 
messenger of the Lord of hosts.' Are not all 
who are old enough to be lost without the 
knowledge of Jesus entitled to hear of him at 
the lips of his messengers?'' T^'e have neg- 
lected them long enough, and a plea for one 
Sundav in each month is not too much, time 



Or, The Sunday -school of To-da;/, 133 

and service for these little ones that believe 
on Him. We plead and provide for heathen 
children, while many are growing up in our 
Churches practically without the gospel. 

The announcement of a ''Children's Day" 
turns the thought and the heart of the Church 
to the children, and makes the children feel 
that they have a place in the Church of their 
fathers; that they are not an excommunicated 
nor a neglected class. To make " Children's 
Day" projfitable to the largest degree, the 
thought and heart of the Church should be 
given to the children. They should be spe- 
cially remembered in the closets and at the 
family-altars in the morning. Sunday-school 
teachers and officers should hold a prayer- 
meeting of ten or fifteen minutes before open- 
ing the Sunday-school to pray for the children, 
and especially for divine help to lead souls to 
Christ by the lessons and services of the day. 
Why not do this every Sunday? Parents 
should attend their children to the Sunday- 
school and service of this day, if on no other 
day, to aid by their presence, their prayers, 
their influence, and sanction the work that 
others are trying to do for the children, and to 
deepen the impressions that may be made 



134 The Child in the Midst; 

upon them during the day, by such remarks 
and application as may occur to them after the 
service is over. By a timely, practical appli- 
cation of the lesson, or the illustration, the 
parent may make a lasting impression on the 
child that will shape his life forever; and by 
carping, captious criticism and fault-finding 
upon the part of the parent, the child's mind 
may be warped for evil forever. Do we ever 
think of this when we are discussing so freely, 
at the dinner-table and fireside, the sermon 
and service of the morning? 

The Sunday-school lesson and closing exer- 
cises of "Children's Day" should be made as 
personal and practical to the children as pos- 
sible. Personal appeals should be made to 
them, and simple instruction given them con- 
cerning their accountability to God, their duty 
to become Christians — to love God, and keep 
his commandments; how to repent and believe, 
and the nature, privileges, and obligations of 
the Christian life. The Sunday-school teacher 
should talk personally to the members of his 
class about their souls, and seek in that way to 
lead them to Christ. It is a good plan for the 
teacher to meet his class at some convenient 
time and place after the morning school and 



Or, The Sundaij-school of To-dafj, 135 

sermon, to talk and pray with tliem. How 
many children and yonng people have been 
brought to Jesus by faithful teachers, in this 
w^ay, eternity alone can reveal. 

When the Sunday-school closes, and after a 
brief interval, the children should be assem- 
bled with the congregation in the audience- 
room of the church. They should occupy the 
front seats, with a sufficient number of parents 
and teachers interspersed among them to keep 
them in order. The service should be so ar- 
ranged as to give the children as large a part 
in the exercises as possible, and to secure va- 
riety. They should be required to aid in read- 
ing the Scripture - lessons by responsive or 
elliptical reading, repeat in concert the Lord's 
Prayer, answer questions occasionally, and do 
the singing. Where there is a choir, let the 
choir lead the children in the service of song. 
As to the sermon, let it be carefully studied 
beforehand as to the subject, the plan, the lan- 
guage, the illustrations, the object, and the ap- 
plication: not that every thing in it and about 
it should be so stereotyped that the incidents 
and inspiration of the occasion cannot get into 
it, but that it should be so assimilated in the 
preacher's mind and heart that the inspiration 



136 The Child in the Midst; 

of the occasion will set both the preacher and 
the sermon on fire of love and zeal, and kindle 
the occasion and the audience into a holy en- 
thusiasm, under the baptism of the Spirit, 
that will will, and move, and melt every heart 
at the cross. The sermon should come within 
the limits of twenty and thirty minutes — never 
fall under twenty, and never go beyond thirty 
minutes. A song may sometimes be happily 
introduced in the middle of the sermon. Sto- 
ries for illustration should always be natural, 
truthful, brief, and not too many. Never tell 
long stories, and use the stories to illustrate 
the sermon, and not the sermon to carry the 
stories. When you get done, quit; and make 
it a point always to dismiss the childreu with 
a pleasant impression on their minds. 

When it is possible to do so, one hour in the 
afternoon of '' Children's Day " should be spent 
in catechising the children, and applying the 
lessons of the day, interspersed with singing. 

The evening service should be given to a 
Sunday-school concert, or mass - meeting, or 
conference, conducted as suggested in the pre- 
ceding chapter. 

When children have been prepared by con- 
version and previous instruction, let them 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 137 

be received into the Church on " Children's 
Day," according to the provision of the Dis- 
cipline. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

BiBLE-KEADING SeKVICE. 

The aversion of Methodists to ritualism in any 
form is not an unmixed good. There are forms 
of service especially suited to children that 
are profitable for doctrine and for instruction, 
which, if adopted by us, would greatly enhance 
the value of the religious instruction of our chil- 
dren. But they smack of ritualism, therefore 
they will never be generally adopted by us, how- 
ever good in themselves. And yet we have a 
rubric, and are required to follow it in every 
service, and especially in the sacraments and 
ordinations. Strange enough, our chief ob- 
jection to ritualism lies against its responsive 
service. Every pastor knows how strong this 
instinctive aversion is by his fruitless efforts 
to induce the congregation to make the re- 
sponses in the administration of the sacra- 
ments, and even to repeat with him the Lord's 
Prayer where it is explicitly directed in the 
rubric. The worship in Methodist Churches 



138 The Child in the Midst; 

for over thirty years, in cities and country, 
lias failed to find a single instance in which 
the congregation follows the rubric in the or- 
dinances and sacraments of the Church. Here 
and there may be an individual exception, but 
no congregation as such, known to the writer, 
makes the responses prescribed for these serv- 
ices. Should any congregation observe it, that 
Church would be charged with High-church- 
ism. Such is the instinctive aversion of Meth- 
ism to every form of ritualism. But, notwith- 
standing all this, no form of service for children 
can be more profitable than the ''Children's 
Bible-ser^dce," in which the Scriptures are 
read and recited in responsive lessons. Sev- 
eral different methods of reading have been 
adopted, and used successfully by the leading 
ministers and teachers of the day. In Groser's 
work on Illustrative Teaching; in the annual 
volumes of the Biblical Treasury, published 
by the London Sunday-school Union; in Dr. 
Newton's Offices of Devotion for the Use of 
Sunday-schools; in J. G. Fitch's Art of Ques- 
tioning; in J. B. Draper's Essays on Our Les- 
sons; in Walt Abbott's Our Sunday-school; in 
Philip Phillips's Singing Pilgrim; in F. A. 
Packard's Teacher Taught; in J. H. Vincent's 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 139 

Sunday-school Reader, for Opening Service 
and Class Study; in the new Sunday-school 
Manual, by Carlton & Porter; and in many 
other similar works, the value of Bible-serv- 
ice for opening and closing school, for chil- 
dren's-meetings, and for Sunday-school Con- 
ferences, is set forth in strong terms, and 
put upon the highest plane of religious in- 
struction. A variety of forms for this service 
may be grouped under the following gener- 
al headings: Expository Beading, Illustrative 
Reading, Interrogatory Reading, Simultaneous 
Reading, Bespofisive Reading, and Elliptical 
Reading. 

Expository and Illustrative Reading. — - 
Under this head the leader selects and reads 
the Scripture - lesson himself, making such 
brief expository comments on the lesson and 
illustrating the lesson with such incidents as 
he may choose, to give it point and application 
to the children. Great care should be taken 
in the selection of the lesson; and then it 
should be studied very thoroughly by the 
leader, so that his comments and illustrations 
will be ready at his tongue's end. All parts 
of the Bible are not equally adapted to this 
kind of reading. To aid the inexperienced 



140 The Child in the Midst; 

reader, the following are suggested: The Para- 
abJes and Miracles of Jesus — The Visit of the 
"Wise Men to Jesns, Matt. ii. 1-12; The Cru- 
cifixion, Mark xv. 15-38; The Resurrection of 
Jesus, Luke xxiv. 1-15; Love to God and Man, 
1 John iv. 7-21; Obedience and Courage, Eph. 
vi. 1-13; The Heavenly Jerusalem, Eev. xxi. 
10-25; The Trial of Abraham's Faith, Gen. 
xxii. 1-14; Blessings for Obedience, Deut. 
xxviii. 1-14; David and Goliath, 1 Sam. xvii. 
38-50; Naaman and the Jewish Maid, 2 Kings 
V. 1-14; Exhortation to Early Piety, Eccl. xii. 
1-14; The Excellence of Wisdom, Prov. iv. 
1-15; The Child in the Midst, Matt, xviii. 
1-11. 

Interrogatory Beading. — After the lesson 
is read, let the leader ask such questions, to be 
answered by the children, as will help to fasten 
the truth taught upon the mind. Suppose the 
lesson should be Luke v. 1-11, then the follow- 
ing questions, furnished by Draper, will serve 
to illustrate the value of this kind of reading: 
1. For what reason did the people press upon 
Jesus? 2. How were the owners of the two 
ships employed? 3. Whose ship did Jesus 
choose to enter? 4. After his sermon, what 
command did he give to the fishermen? 5. 



Or, The Sundaij^school of To-day. 141 

What answer was given by Peter? 6. How 
did the fishermen succeed in their fishing? 
7. What did they do with the large quantity 
of fish they caught? 8. What effect did this 
miracle have upon Peter? 9. And what effect 
did it have upon his companions? 10. How 
did Jesus comfort Peter? 11. What did the 
disciples do when they came to land? 

Simultaneous Beading. — All read in con- 
cert; that is, simultaneously by the leader and 
the congregation. This kind of reading, when 
the numbers in attendance are large, will al- 
ways create confusion where there has been 
no previous training as to the breath-pauses. 
Unless these pauses for breath are made at 
short intervals and in concert, the reading will 
be a confusion. Let the dashes in the follow- 
ing selection from Matt. xxv. 1-6 indicate the 
breath-pauses, and the value of this kind of 
reading will be understood: "Then shall the 
kingdom of heaven -be likened unto ten vir- 
gins, which took their lamps, and went 

forth to meet the bridegroom. And five 

of them were Avise, and five were foolish. 

They that were foolish took their 

lamps, and took no oil with them : but 

the wise took oil in their vessels," etc. I 



142 The Child in the Midst, 

do not recommend this last form of reading 
for general use. It can only be successful in 
well-trained schools, and then only after much 
practice. 

CHAPTER IX. 

BiBLE-EEADING, CONTINUED. 

KESPOXSIVE EEADING. 
This kind of reading, which is also called al- 
ternate reading, is not suited alike to all por- 
tions of the Bible. The Psalms and the Prov- 
erbs, many of them, were originally arranged 
for use in liturgical service, and are pecul- 
iarly fitted for this kind of reading; albeit 
the common arrangement of them into chap- 
ters and verses mars their use in this form as 
much as it does their force and beauty. The 
Psalms especially were obviously designed for 
this kind of use in public worship. Dr. Alex- 
ander says: ''They are all poetical; not mere- 
ly imaginative and expressive of feeling, but 
stamped eternally with that peculiar character 
of parallelism which distinguishes the higher 
style of Hebrew composition from ordinary 
j)rose. They are all ecclesiastical lyrics, 
psalms or hymns, intended to be permanently 



Or, The Simdcv/schooJ of To-r/r///. 143 

used in public worship." Another writer says: 
"In all, or nearly all of them, the two parts, 
lead and response, are clearly traceable through- 
out. Thought answers to' thought, emotion to 
emotion, and the responsive utterance by lead- 
er and people develops the beauty and power of 
their inspired words in a much higher degree 
than can be realized by the ordinary mode of 
reading by alternate verses." 

Psalm Ixvii. will illustrate the above state- 
ment, and show the original parallelism. The 
leeicl is printed in Roman letters, and the re- 
spouse in Italics: 

1. God be merciful unto us, and bless us; 
And cause his face to shine upon us. 

2. That thy way may be known upon earth, 
lliy saving health among cdl stations. 

3. Let the people praise thee, O God; 
Let all the people praise thee. 

4. O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: 
For thou shalt judge the people righteoushj, 

and govern the nations upon earth. 

5. Let the people praise thee, O God; 
Let cdl the people praise thee. 

6. Then shall the earth yield her increase; 
And God, even our own God, shall bless tis. 



IM The Child hi the Midst; 

7. God sliall bless us; 

And all the ends of the earth shall fear him. 

In many of the Psalms the two parts are so 
readily distinguished that the congregation 
can read the response from the common ver- 
sion when the leader has read his part. For 
instance, in Psalm cxix. the responses can be 
readily suj)plied to the following: 

9. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse 
his way? 

10. With my whole heart have I sought 
thee; 

11. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, 

12. Blessed art thou, O Lord: 

13. With my lips have I declared all the 
judgments of thy mouth. 

15. I will meditate in thy precepts, 

16. I will delight myself in thy statutes. 

ELLIPTICAL KEADIXG. 

This method can be applied to any portion 
of the Scriptures, and it is the only way that 
narrative can be successfully read by respon- 
ses. It requires practice and familiarity with 
the lesson. The congregation must be taught 
not to begin until the leader stops, and then 
to read to the end of the period. If the lead- 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day. 145 

er reads a whole verse, the congregation are 
expected to read the next verse. Take the 
narrative of the Prodigal Son, Luke xv. 11-22, 
the ellipses to be snpplied by the congrega- 
tion: 

11. And he said, . 

12. And the younger of them said to his 
father, . 

13. And not many days after the youngest 
son gathered all together, and took his jour- 
ney into a far country, . 

14. And when he had spent all, there arose 
a mighty famine in that land; . 

15. And he went and joined himself to a 
citizen of that country; . 

16. And he would fain have filled his belly 
with the husks that the swine did eat: . 

17. And when he came to himself, he said. 



20. And he arose, and came to his father. 



21. And the son said unto him, . 

22. But the father said to his servants, 



This elliptical form of reading may be prof- 
itably employed as an occasional change in 
any Sunday-school or special service for chil-. 
10 



146 The Child in the Midst; 

dren, but it can only be nsecl successfully after 
training. 

To the various forms here given may be 
added the method of Bible-reading adopted 
extensively by evangelists and Young Men's 
Christian Association workers — \dz., to hand 
out to the audience bits of paper, num- 
bered, with the book, chapter, and verse to 
be read written on them, and then call out 
the numbers, and let the person holding 
the number rise up and read the passage, 
upon which the leader offers his comment. 
For example, a slip of paper marked "4" is 
handed to John Smith. When the leader has 
disposed of one, two, and three, he calls out 
"number four." John Smith rises and reads 
Eom. X. 9, 10, which he found marked on No. 
4, to which he had already turned; then the 
leader proceeds with his comments. This is 
a very effective way of expounding the Script- 
ures by a brief, practical commentary; but it 
is better suited to adults than children. The 
earnest pastor may try successfully all of 
these methods in his Sunday-school and con- 
gregation ; but it requires familiarity with the 
Scriptures, with ready, rapid, and telling com- 
ments to make the reading interesting and 



Or, The Sitndaij -school of To-dcuj, 147 

profitable. Illustrations and pointed applica- 
tion of the subject can be successfully made. 
Few men are successful Bible-readers for an 
audience. It seems to be a special gift. 



CHAPTER X. 

Forms for Opening and Closing. 

The first and second forms here given are ar- 
ranged by Henry P. Haven, superintendent of 
a Congregational Church Sunday-school in 
New London, Connecticut, and printed in 
sheets for the use of his school. They may 
be adopted in part or in whole for opening 
and closing any Sunday-school. 

First Fobm. 

At the tap of the bell, all bow their heads in 
silent prayer. At a second tap, the assembly 
rises. 

The leader says: "Gather the people to- 
gether, men and women, and children, and the 
stranger that is within thy gates, that they 
may hear, and that they may learn, and fear 
the Lord your God, and observe to do all the 
words of this law." Deut. xxxi. 12. 



148 The Child in the Midst; 

In concert all repeat: ''Hear, O Israel: The 
Lord our God is one Lord; and thon shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 
Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve 
him." Deut. vi. 4, 5, 13. 

The superintendent says: "Ye shall dili- 
gently keep the commandments of the Lord 
your God, and his testimonies, and his stat- 
utes, which he hath commanded thee. And 
thou shalt do that which is right and good in 
the sight of the Lord ; that it may be well with 
thee." Deut. vi. 17, 18. 

The assembly responds: "And the Lord 
commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear 
the Lord our God, for our good always, that 
he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. 
And it shall be our righteousness, if we ob- 
serve to do all these commandments before 
the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us." 
Deut. vi. 24, 25. 

The assembly chants: 

O sing unto the Lord a | new — | song ; 
Sing unto the | Lord — | all the | earth ; 
Sing unto the Lord; | bless his | name; 
Show forth his sal | vation, from | day to | day, 
Declare his glory a | mong the | heathen. 
His wonders a | niong | all | people. 



Or, The Stmday-school of To-day, 149 

For the Lord is great, and greatly | to be | praised ; 
He is to be | feared a | bove all | gods. 
O worship the Lord in the | beauty of | holiness; 
Fear be | fore him, | all the | earth. 

The assembly being seated, the leader reads 
a selection from the New Testament having 
reference to the topic of the day. 

All rising, an appropriate Psalm is read re- 
sponsiyely by leader and assembly. 

In concert all repeat: *' Blessed be the God 
and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in 
heavenly places in Christ." Eph. i. 3. 

The assembly being seated, a hymn is sung. 
All being in a position for prayer (kneeling, 
bowing forward the head, standing, or sitting 
with the eyes covered by the hand, as may be 
the practice), prayer is offered by the leader, 
closing with the Lord's Prayer, in which all 
unite. 

The school rises. The leader says: "So 
they read in the book in the law of God dis- 
tinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them 
to understand the reading." Neh. viii. 8. 

Passages appropriate to the theme of the 
day are read responsively by the assembly in 
divisions. 

The assembly being seated, a hymn is sung. 



150 The Child in the Midst; 

Rising, all recite, in concert, this statement of 
Christian doctrines, in the language of Script- 
ure: 

All Men are Sinners, "For there is not a 
just man upon earth, that cloetli good, and sin- 
neth not." Eccl. vii. 20. ''Wherefore, as by 
one man sin entered into the world, and death 
by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for 
that all have sinned." Eom. y. 12. 

All Must he Converted. "Jesus answered 
and said unto him. Verily, verily, I say unto 
thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot 
see the kingdom of God." St. John iii. 3. 
" Not by works of righteousness which we have 
done, but according to his mercy he saved us, 
by the washing of regeneration, and renewing 
of the Holy Ghost." Titus iii. 5. 

Jesus the Only Saviour. "This is a faithful 
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- 
ners." 1 Tim. i. 15. "Neither is there salva- 
tion in any other: for there is none other 
name under heaven given among men, where- 
by we must be saved." Acts iv. 12. 

Final Destiny of the Bighteous and the Wicked, 
" The hour is coming, in the which all that are 
in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall 



Or, The Sundai/^scJiool of To-da;/, 151 

come forth; they that have done good, unto 
the resurrection of life; and they that have 
done evil, unto the resurrection of damna- 
tion." St. John V. 28, 29. "These shall go 
away into everlasting punishment; but the 
righteous into life eternal." Matt. xxv. 46. 

For the foregoing statement, the Apostles' 
Creed may be substituted, if preferred. 

The general exercises for the day follow 
this opening exercise. At their close the as- 
sembly rises, as at the opening, at the tap of 
the bell. 

The leader says: "This book of the law 
shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou 
shalt meditate therein day and night, that 
thou mayest observe to do according to all 
that is written therein: for then thou shalt 
make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt 
have good success." Josh. i. 8. 

The assembly responds: "All Scripture is 
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for 
instruction in righteousness: that the man of 
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
unto all good works." 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. 

A hymn is sung, followed by the doxology 
to close the service. 



152 The Child in the Midst; 

Second Form. 
Rising at the tap of the bell, all recite in 
concert: 

This is tlie day whicii the Lord hath made ; 

We will rejoice and be glad in it, (Ps, cxviii. 24,) 

Hear my prayer, O Lord! 

Give ear to my supplications. (Ps. cxliii, 1.) 

Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul ; 

O my God, I trust in thee. (Ps. xxv. 1, 2,) 

Show me thy ways, O Loixl ; 

Teach me thy paths. (Ps, xxv. 4) 

For thou art the God of my salvation; 

On thee do I wait all the day, (Ps. xxv. 5>) 

Trust in the- Lord with all thine heart ; 

And lean not unto thine own unde standing. 

In all thy wa}^ acknowledge him. 

And he shall direct thy paths. (Prov, iii. 5, 6,) 
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinnere, (1 
Tim, i. 15,) 

A hymn is s\ing. All rising, selections from 
the twenty-serenth Psalm, as follows, are read 
responsiyely by the leader and assembly: 

The Lord is my light and my salvation; 
Whom shall I fear ? 
The lAtrd u the strength o/ my life; 
Of whom shall I be afraid f 
One thing have I desired of the Lord, 
That will I seek after; 

That I may duell in the hotise of the Lord ail ike dai/s of 
my lifes 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day. 153 

To behold the beauty of the Lord, 

And to inquire in his temple. 

For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; 

In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; 

Pie shall set me up upon a rock. 

Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; 

I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord, 

Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice ; 

Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. 

When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; 

My heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. 

Thou hast been ray lielp; leave me not, 

Neither forsake me, Ood of my salvation! 

Teach me thy way, O Lord ! 

And lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. 

I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the 

Lord 
In the land of the living. 
Wait on the Lord ! 

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; 
Wait I say on the Lord ! 

In concert all say: 

The Lord our God be with us, let him not leave us, nor 
forsake us: that he may incline our hearts unto him, to 
walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments. (1 
Kings viii. 57, 58.) 

The assembly being seated, a hymn is snng. 
Prayer is offered, closing with the Lord's 
Prayer, in which all unite. 

All rising, the following selections are read, 



154 The Child in the Midst; 

in alternation by the leader and assembly, from 
the teachings of Christ in the sermon on the 
mount: 

Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, (Acts xx. 35.) 
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom 
of heaven. (Matt. v. 3.) 

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness: for they shall he filled, (Matt. v. 6.) 

Blessed are tlie merciful : for they shall obtain mercy. 
(Matt. Y. 7.) 

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (Matt. 
V. 8.) 

Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called 
the children of God. (Matt. y. 9.) 

Blessed are they ichich are persecuted for righteousness^ sake: 
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. v. 10.) 

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see 
your good works, and glorify your Father which is in 
Jieaven. (Matt, v, 16.) 

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them 
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, 
and persecute you. (Matt. y. 44.) 

When thou doest alms, let not thy left-hand know what 
thy right-hand doeth. (Matt. vi. 3.) 

When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast 
shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy 
Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matt. 
Yl. 6.) 

If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father 
will also forgive you. (Matt. vi. 14.) 

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 
Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt. vi. 15.) 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 155 

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find ; 
knock, and it shall be opened unto you. (Matt. vii. 7.) 

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh 
findefh; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Matt, 
vii. 8.) 

Enter ye in at the strait gate : for wide is the gate, and 
broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many 
tbere be which go in thereat. (Matt. vii. 13.) 

Because strait is the c^ate, and narrow is the loay, which 
leadeth unto life, and few there he that find it. (Matt. vii. 14.) 

The assembly being seated, a hymn is sung. 
The general exercises for the day follow. At 
their close, the assembly rises, at the tap of 
the bell, and the Ten Commandments are re- 
cited in concert. 

The leader says: "These are the command- 
ments, which the Lord commanded Moses for 
the children of Israel in Mount Sinai." Lev. 
xxvii. 34. 

In concert all recite : 

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. 

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
vain. 

4. Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. 

5. Honor tliy father and thy mother. 

6. Thou shalt not kill. 

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

8. Thou shalt not steal. 

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness. 

10. Thou shalt not covet. (Ex. xx. 3-17.) 



156 The Child in the Midst; 

The leader says: ** The sum of the com- 
mandments, as given by our Lord Jesus 
Christ, in the Gosjpel according to St. Mark, 
twelfth chapter, twenty-ninth, thirtieth, and 
thirty-first verses, reads -" 

Assembly recites: ''The first of all the com- 
mandments is, Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our 
God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God wdth all thy heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all 
thy strength: this is the first commandment. 
And the second is like, namely this. Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

The assembly being seated, a hymn is sung. 
Prayer is offered, followed by the benediction, 
if a minister leads. 

Tried Fobm. 

A very simple form, suited to almost any 
Sunday-school, and adopted by many of our 
schools, is the following: 

Punctually at the minute for opening, the 
bell taj)s for silence. 

1. A song is announced. The bell taps 
twice for all to rise and sing. 

2. All kneel and pray, closing with the 
Lord's Prayer in concert. 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day. 157 

3. Another song — all seated. 

4. The bell taps twice for all to rise. With 
Lesson Quarterly in hand, the superintendent 
asks, "What is the subject of the lesson to- 
day?" All answer, repeating the subject of 
the lesson. "What is the Golden Text?" 
All recite the Golden Text in concert. Then 
may follow any other questions, to be an- 
swered by the whole school, such as. What 
is the central truth? the date? the place? 
etc., just to fix attention; and then the super- 
intendent and school read the text of the les- 
son for the day, in responses, by alternate 
verses. 

5. At one tap of the bell, all are seated. 
The superintendent may read any other pas- 
sages bearing on the lesson of the day, or he 
may speak a word about the practical value of 
the lesson, and give any general direction to 
teachers, or others, about the school-session, 
not consuming over two or three minutes. 

6. KoU-call. At one tap of the bell, the offi- 
cers rise and answer to their names; at another 
tap of the bell, the teachers rise and answer 
to their names. At the conclusion of roll- 
call, the superintendent asks, "Are there any 
classes without teachers to-day?" Classes 



158 The Child in the Midst; 

whose teachers are absent rise and stand nntil 
they are supplied with teachers, or are asked 
to be seated. (To supply the place of absent 
teachers is the first duty of the superintend- 
ent.) 

7. At the tap of the bell, the superintendent 
orders the teachers to take up the lesson. 

This opening exercise should consume not 
less than seven nor more than fifteen minutes. 
Thirty minutes should be given to the lesson, 
without interruption from any one or anything; 
and fifteen minutes to take up the collection, 
distribute papers, exchange books, apply the 
lesson, and close the session — making just one 
hour for the entire session of the school. A 
school may be trained to be prompt to the 
minute, and thus secure the moral value of 
time. 

To Close. — 1. At the first tap of the bell, 
everybody gives attention to the superintend- 
ent. Collection taken, papers distributed, and 
books exchanged. 2. A song. 3. General ap- 
plication of the lesson. 4. Reports from offi- 
cers. 5. A song, all standing. 6. The Aj)os- 
tles' Creed, repeated in concert, and the school 
dismissed. 

N, B. — These forms may be used, in whole 



Or, The Sundaij-school of To-dcvj. 159 

or in part, in any public exercises o£ the Sun- 
day-school, such as anniversaries, concerts, pic- 
nics, mass-meetings; and with suitable changes 
of texts and songs, they will do for Christmas 
and Easter services. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Childben'sService. 
As a specimen of my own way of conducting 
children's service, it may be profitable to re- 
produce here about the substance of a service 
for children conducted recently in the Sunday- 
school room of Tulip Street Church, Nashville, 
Tenn., of which I am now the pastor. It is a 
fair sample of the children's service held every 
Sunday afternoon in the presence of many 
parents, Sunday-school officers, teachers, and 
visitors, the large room being generally full 
of people. 

The children are all seated together, and in 
front; the organ and chorister facing the chil- 
dren, but a little to one side; each child is 
furnished with a song-book, and the chorister 
always stands up before them to lead the sing- 
ing. Promptly at 3 p.m. the singing begins. 



160 The CJiUd in the Midst; 



Two or three songs are sung while the children 
are assembling; then the pastor, standing on 
the floor in front of and near them, begins 
about thus: 

"Whose house is this?" 

" God's house." 

" Is God in his house? " 

"Yes, sir." 

"How do you know that God is in his 
house?" 

" Because God is everywhere." 

"And then the Bible says, ' The Lord is in 
his holy temple.' Is this house his holy tem- 
ple?" 

"Yes, sir." 

" Can you see God in this house to-day? " 

" No, sir." 

"Can he see you?" 

"Yes, sir." 

" Does he know every thing that you do? " 
' "Yes, sir." 

" If you come into my house, you would n't 
do any thing that would offend me, would you ? " 

" No, sir." 

" Then you would n't do any thing that would 
offend God, in his own house, would you? " 

"No, sir." 



Or, Tlie Siinday-scliool of To-day, 161 

" You said that God is everywhere. That is 
what we call God's ' omnipresence.' " 

"Does God know every thing? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" That is what we call God's ' omniscience.' " 

" Now, what are we assembled here in God's 
house for? " 

" To worship." 

" Yes, to worship God. All the holy angels, 
and all the good people worship God. And we, 
his children, will v/orship him in spirit and 
in truth. Our songs of praise, our prayers, 
and all the exercises of this hour, we offer 
to God with our devotions to-day. When we 
sing, all must sing; and when we pray, all 
must pray — at least all must join in the Lord's 
Prayer. Now let us stand, and sing." 

" Let us pray." All kneel, and at the close 
of a short extempore prayer, abounding in 
thanksgiving, all repeat the Lord's Prayer, 
then all rise and sing; after which the pastor 
asks : 

"What is sin?" 

" The transgression of the law of God." 

"What is a Christian?" 

"One who loves God, and keeps his com- 
mandments." 
11 



162 The Child in the Midst; 

"How many commandments are tliere? " 

" Ten." 

"Who gave the commandments? " 

"God." 

" To whom did God give them? " 

" To Moses." 

" Upon what did he write them? " 

" On two tables of stone." 

"How many were on the first table? " 

"Four." 

" How many on the second table? " 

"Six. 

"What do the commandments on the first 
table teach us? " 

" Our duty to God." 

" What do those on the second table teach 
us?" 

"Our duty to man." 

" What is the first commandment? " 

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." 

"Second?" 

" Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 
image." 

"Third?" 

" Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord 
thy God in vain." 

"Fourth?" 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 1G3 

"Eemember the Sabbath-day, to keep it 
holy." 

" These all teach us our duty to God." 

"Fifth?" 

" Honor thy father and thy mother." 

"Sixth?" 

" Thou Shalt not kill." 

"Seventh?" 

" Thou shalt not commit adultery." 

"Eighth?" 

" Thou shalt not steal." 

"Ninth?" 

" Thou shalt not bear false witness." 

"Tenth?" 

" Thou shalt not covet." 

" These all teach us our duty to man." 

"What is the eighth?" 

" Thou shalt not steal." 

"The sixth?" 

" Thou shalt not kill." 

"Ninth?" 

" Thou shalt not bear false witness." 

"Fourth?" 

"Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it 
holy." 

"Seventh?" 

" Thou shalt not commit adultery." 



164 The Child in the Midst; 

^'Second?" 

" Thou slmlt not make unto tliee any graven 
image." 

^' Fifth?" 

'' Honor thy father and thy mother." 

^' Third?" 

'' Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord 
thy God in yain." 

"Tenth?" 

" Thou shalt not coyet." 

"First?" 

" Thou shalt have no other gods before me." 

"Sing." 

These questions and answers are repeated as 
rapidly as possible, the children never know- 
ing which commandment will be called for; 
but, knowing all by number, they are on the 
sharpest outlook to see who can answer first. 
It keeps them wade-awake. After the song, 
liow the commandments are broken, and what 
it is to break them, is taught in this way: 

" Who break the first commandment? " 

" The heathen." 

" What are they called who break the first 
commandment? " 

"Idolators." 

"Many people break the first command- 



Or, The Stindai/school of To-day, 165 

ment who would be insulted if you were to 
call them ' heathen,' or ' idolators.' They live 
here in this Christian land. They worship 
self, or gold, or gain, or dress, or pleasure, or 
honor, or mammon, more than God. Are 
they idolators? " 

"Yes, sir." 

"Are they heathen? " 

" No, sir." 

"No; some of them want us to call them 
Christians." 

"How do people break the second com- 
mandment? " 

" By worshiping images." 

"How do they break the third command- 
ment?" 

" By swearing." 

"Did you ever hear anybody swear? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Did you ever hear any boys swear? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Boys ? Why, what did they look like ? " 

" They looked like bad boys." 

" I should think so, and they are bad boys. 
Now, tell me, boys, did you ever hear any 
men swear? " 

"Yes, sir." 



166 The Child in the Midst; 

" Grown-up men? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" What did tliey look like ? " 

" Irislimen/' piped in one little fellow. 

"Did not some o£ them look like Ameri- 
cans? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Now, tell me truly, boys, did you ever hear 
your father sYvear? " 

" Yes, sir." " No, sir." " Yes, sir." 

I am glad that you never heard your father 
swear, but O how sorry I am for that boy who 
has heard his father swear. 

Some years ago I w^as asking these questions 
of about two hundred children, seated in a 
church with about as many grown people. 
One little boy, sitting on his father's lap very 
near me, was answ^ering the questions with the 
rest, and had become so excited that his voice 
was pitched on a high key. When I asked, 
"Did you ever hear your father swear? " his 
voice piped up sharply, ''Yes, si)','' and no one 
else ansv/ered. Every voice was hushed for a 
moment. The father was startled; he turned 
pale; the hot blood mounted to the temples, 
and then rushed back upon the heart, leaving 
the ashen hue of death. He looked this way 



Or, The SundcnjscJiool of To-day, 1G7 

and that to see if there v/as any way of escape 
only to find that he was the center of every 
eye; he dropped his head, and felt a partial 
relief when the service went on. At the close 
of the service, he said to me, v\^ith much feel- 
ing, "It is too true! it is too true that this 
little fellow has heard his father swear; but by 
the help of God, he shall never hear nie swear 
again." He v/ent home very sad, repented of 
his sins, and became a Christian. 

" Now, children, this commandment di:ffers 
from all the rest, because God added to it the 
words, ' for the Lord v»dll not hold him guilt- 
less that taketh his name in vain.' It must 
be an awful sin to swear, and yet it is, perhaps, 
the most common of all the sins. Now sing." 

I read Matt, xviii. 1-6, and comment on it 
by telling them how ''Jesus called a little 
child unto him, and set him in the midst of 
them," and taught us that even a little child 
cannot only be a Christian, but be the best 
Christian in the Church. 

''What is a Christian?" 

" One who loves God, and keeps his com- 
mandments." 

"How many of these children are Chris- 
tians?" 



133 The Child in the Midst; 

A good many little liancls go np. 

" Who makes you a Christian? " 

" Jesns." 

"How does Jesus make you a Christian? " 

"By forgiving my sins." "By giving me a 
new heart." 

"Yes; when he forgives sins, he gives us a 
new heart. Now, how many of you want to be 
Christians? " 

Many little hands go up. 

"Jesus became a little child himself that 
every little child might become a Christian, 
and love him, and keep his commandments. 
He died on the cross to take away our sins, 
and make us new creatures, that we may go to 
heaven when v/e die, and live with him for- 
ever. He took a little child, not a hig child, 
and set him in the midst. He said, ' Suffer 
the little children to come unto me,' not the hig 
children; he wanted the little children as well 
as the big children. I want every child here to 
come to Jesus, and be saved. ' Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' 
That is faith, and faith is just taking God at 
his word. Whatever he promises in his word 
that will he do. A little girl, nine years old, 
taught me the nature of faith. In a love-feast 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-day, 169 

in Kirkwood, Mo., she said: 'I love Jesus. 
How much I love Jesus, I cannot tell; but I 
love liim because he first loved me, and be- 
cause he has forgiven my sins. I never told 
you about my first prayer. I was just six 
years old, and was living with my grandma, as 
I am now.' Then she told in simple language 
about her first prayer, how God answered it, 
and said: ' Ever since then I have been praying 
to him every day. He does n't always answer 
my prayer at the time; but if I have his prom- 
ise, that is just as good to me as if I had what 
I ask for. I '11 take his promise for it, and he 
can answer it v/hen it pleases him.' Don't 
you know that my heart melted? And not 
mine only, but every heart in that church 
melted. That is faith exactly. ' If I have his 
promise, that is just as good to me as if I had 
what I ask for.' If we confess our sins, does 
he not promise to forgive our sins? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" If we ask him, does he not promise that 
we shall receive? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Then let us confess our sins, and ask him to 
forgive us, and believe that he does forgive our 
sins, because he has promised. Let us pray." 



170 Tlie Child in tlie Midst; 

At this, all kneel and pray. Sometimes a 
few moments are spent in silent prayer, fol- 
lowed by a short appropriate prayer; then, 
after a few Y>^ords of connsel about hoiv to 
live, how to keep the commandments, and 
what to do when we break them, all rise and 
sing an appropriate song, repeat the Apostles' 
Creed, and are dismissed. 

During this service the utmost freedom, 
consistent with the occasion and the place, is 
allowed the bubbling young life of children; 
and incidents from child-life are used to illus- 
trate the subject, and correct many little e^dl 
habits among children. This service is usually 
follovred by a class-meeting in the study with 
those v/ho are trying to be Christians, in 
which they tell their experience, and receive 
such personal and practical instruction as 
Y>'ill be suited to each particular case. Many 
of these little ones are greatly troubled at 
times about their experience, but more so 
about their duty, just for all the w^orld as 
grown people are; but they are readier to list- 
en to good advice, and are more tractable than 
grown i3eople. In this field the pastor's work 
is productive of lasting good, for by wisdom, 
grace, tact, and love, he can mold, develop, 



Or, The Snmlfijj-school of To-daij. 171 

and direct the character of these little ones 
for time and eternity. 

'T is not a cause of small import 

The pastor's care demands ; 
But what might fill an angePs heart, 
And filled a Saviour's hands. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Christmas Seryice. 

The Sunday-school room or chnrch should be 
appropriately decorated for the anniversary of 
our Lord's nativity, and the children should 
be previously well trained in the songs and rec- 
itations. The songs for this service cannot 
be designated unless all of our schools were 
using the same song-book; but the superin- 
tendent, or some other competent person, 
should make the most appropriate selections 
possible from the books at command. In our 
Church Hymn-book are "Joy to the World," 
" Star of Bethlehem," and others. In the Xew 
Life are " Christmas Song," " Come to the 
Fountain," "Anniversary Hymn," etc. Let 
the best be selected, and have many of them 
well practiced. Either have classes or indi- 



172 The Child in the Midst; 

vidiial children to make the responses, to 
whom the responses can be furnished in writ- 
ing, to be memorized where the service is not 
printed. It is more impressive when all the 
service is memorized. Have the children 
well seated in front, and let the service be 
brief, especially if it is to be followed by re- 
freshments, or the distribution of presents, or 
both refreshments and presents. 
PROGRAMME. 

1. A song by the school, all standing. 

2. Prayer, closing \vith the Lord's Prayer, repeated in 
concert. 

3. A song, all sitting. 

4. What do we call this day? (By pastor, superintend- 
ent, or other suitable person.) 

School. Christmas-day. 

What is Christmas-day? 

School. The anniversary of Christ's nativity. 

Hov,^ long since Christ was born? 

School. About 1882 years. 

Why do we call this year A.D. 1882? 

A Boy. A.D. stands for Anno Domini, which means the 
year of our Lord. 

Who foretold the coming of Christ? 

School. The prophets. 

Will you repeat any prophecies that foretold the coming 
of Christ? 

First Child, or Class. The scepter shall not depart from 
Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh. 



Or, The Sundajj-school of To-daij. 173 

come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. 
(Gen. xlix. 10.) 

Third Child. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son 
is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulder ; 
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The 
mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 
(Isa. ix. 6.) 

Fourth Child. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, 
and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith 
the Lord. (Isa. lix. 20.) 

Second Child. Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear 
a son, and shall call his name Imm.anuel. (Isa. vii. 14.) 

Fifth Child. In his days shall Judah be saved, and Israel 
shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall 
be called. The Lord Our Righteousness. (Jer. xxiii. 6.) 

Sixth Child. And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly 
come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, 
whom ye delight in : behold, he shall come, saith the Lord 
of hosts. (Mai. iii. 1.) 

Seventh Child. But unto you that fear my name shall 
the Sun of righteousness arise w^th healing in his wings. 
(Mai. iv. 2.) 

5. A song. 

6. What does the nativity of Christ mean? 
Sclwol. The 6iV^A of Christ. 

Where was Jesus born ? 

School. In Bethlehem of Judea. 

When? 

School. In the days of Herod the king. 

Who came from the east to Jerusalem? 

School. Wise men. 

What did thev see in the east? 



174 The Child in the Midst; 

School. His star. 

Who were abiding in the field by night? 

School. Shepherds. 

What were they doing? 

School. Keeping watch over their flocks. 

Who appeared unto them? 

School. The Angel of the Lord, 

What did he say unto them? 

School. Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, 
a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 

Who else appeared unto them? 

School. A multitude of the heavenly host. 

What were they doing? 

School. Pi^ising God, and saying, Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men. 

7. A song. 

8. What record have we concerning the birth of Christ? 

First Child, or Class. Now when Jesus was born in Beth- 
lehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, 
there came Avise men from the east to Jerusalem. (Matt. 

Second Child. Saying, Where is he that is born King of 
the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are 
come to worship him. (Matt. ii. 2.) 

Third Child. And there were in the same country shep- 
herds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock 
by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon 
them, and the glory of the* Lord shone round about them ; 
and they were sore afraid. (St. Luke ii. 8, 9.) 

Fourth Child. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: 
for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which 
shall be to all people. (St. Luke ii. 10.) 



Or, The Sundfu/srhooJ of To-fhvj. 175 

Fifth Child. For unto you is born this day in the city of 
David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. (St. Luke 
ii. IL) 

Sixth Child. And suddenly there was with the angel a 
multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying. 
(St. Luke ii. 13.) 

School. Standing, and all repeating together with ani- 
mation, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
good-will toward men. (St. Luke ii. 14.) 

9. A song, all standing. 

10. An address. 

11. A song. 

12. A prayer, and the benediction. 

It will increase tlie force and effect if the 
children who make the responses are scattered 
about oyer the house, and rise in their places 
and speak in a clear, distinct voice. Short ad- 
dresses may be interspersed through the pro- 
gramme. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Anothee Christmas Service. 

Last Christmas I gave my Sunday-school at 
Tulip Street Church, Nashville, Tenn., a lit- 
tle surprise by improvising a short service, of 
which the following is the plan and substance. 
I wrote the questions on slips of paper, and 
numbered them, then selected as many chil- 



176 The Child hi the Midst; 

dren as I had slips of paper, spoke to them 
privately, and asked them to meet me at the 
chnrch tvv^o hours before the service. I gave 
to each one a slip of paper, stationed them 
about in the church as I wanted them, and 
asked them to stand u}) and read the questions 
in the order in which they were numbered, 
waiting each time for the answer. After going 
through the performance, I dismissed them 
with the injunction of secrecy, asking them to 
memorize the questions, and be promptly in 
their places. The audience that packed the 
church were wholly ignorant of the pro- 
gramme. At the appointed time the school 
rose and sung a glad Christmas-song, which 
was followed by a prayer of thanksgiving, 
closing with the Lord's Prayer. After an- 
other song, I made a running statement about 
Christmas and the children, occupying about 
three minutes, when a bright little girl in the 
audience arose and, in a distinct voice, asked: 

First Child. Why is this day called Christmas? 

Ans. It is so called from the feast of our Lord's nativity. 
The word comes from Christ and mass, which means a holy 
day, or feast, hence we have Christmas. 

Second Child. When was this Christmas festival institut- 
ed, and by whom ? 

Ans. Christmas, on the 25th day of December, was in- 
stituted by Pope Jnlins I., in the fourth century. 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-dafj. 177 

Third Child. Was it always observed on the 25th day of 
December? 

Ans. No. Before this decree of Julius I., as early as A. D. 
138, the Church began to observe the feast of the nativity 
by autliority of the decretal letters of Pope Telesphorus. 

Fourth Child. How was Christmas observed by Koman 
Catholics in early times? 

Ans. By the celebration of three masses ; one at mid- 
night, one at early dawn, and one in the morning. It was 
then a common tradition that Christ was born at midnight, 
and they rocked the cradle at midnight in the church, 
w^hich custom is still kept up in some countries. But 
when Jesus was born the manger was his only cradle. 

Fifth Child. How was Christmas celebrated in the mid- 
dle ages? 

Ans. By gay, fantastic scenes of a dramatic character. 
The performers wore grotesque masks and fantastic cos- 
tumes. They often represented in their weird scenes an 
infant in a cradle, surrounded by the Virgin Mary and 
Joseph, by buU's-heads, cherubs. Eastern Magi, and many 
other curious symbols. They sung Christmas carols, ac- 
companied by the music of violins, guitars, organs, and 
other instruments. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, 
bishops, priests, and people, all joined together in these 
carols and dances, each bearing a lighted wax taper, mak- 
ing the night scenes grotesqae and w^eird beyond concep- 
tion. 

Sixth Child. How is Christmas observed in merry En- 
gland? 

Ans. In ye olden times the bells were rung at midnight; 
they assembled in the churches, celebrated mass, had a 
sumptuous feast, and then entered upon what were called 
12 



178 The Child in the Midst; 

the "December liberties," the feast of fools and asses, and 
other grotesque Saturnalia, in which every thing serious 
was burlesqued, and the proprieties and decencies of society 
w^ere ridiculed. It is observed now with the proprieties 
of a Christian festival. 

Seventh Child. What of Christmas in Germany, and 
Northern Europe? 

Ans. Christmas is called the "Children's Festival" in 
Germany and in the countries of Northern Europe, and 
Christmas -eve is devoted to giving presents from the 
Christmas-tree. You know all about the Christmas-tree, 
and how the presents are distributed from them. In those 
countries each member of the family receives a present, 
but the children are not always joyous, for the mother 
takes this occasion to tell her daughters, and the father his 
sons, what they have seen good in their conduct, and what 
they have seen bad. They do this privately, but it spoils 
many a bad child's Christmas. In some of the smaller 
villages of North Germany all the presents for all the 
children are sent to one place, and the funniest man they 
can find dresses himself up in high buskins, fur robes, flax 
wig and mask, and takes the presents from house to house, 
calls for the children, asks their parents about them, and 
distributes the presents to each according as they have 
been good or bad. You have doubtless seen this good old 
gentleman, and call him what? '^ Santa Claus.^' 

Eighth Child. Tell us something about " the lord of mis- 
rule." 

Ans. In the houses of the English lords they would ap- 
point a "lord of misrule" to "make tlie rarest pastimes to 
delight the beholder." He took possession of the palace, 
feasted the tenants, personated the lord, and burlesqued 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-cUnj, 179 

the manners and costumes of tlie aristocracy, wliile the 
lord of the manor and his family encouraged this fun, 
making costumes, and providing every thing for the larder 
that could be desired. 

Ninth Child, Where do we get the custom of decorating 
houses and churches with evergreens ? 

Arts. It comes to us from an ancient Druid custom, 
which perhaps grew out of the belief that sylvan spirits 
took refuge from the cold in evergreens, where they could 
remain unnipped by frost till a milder season. The holly, 
ivy, rosemary, laurel, and mistletoe, were generally used 
for Christmas decorations. Of these evergreens they 
sometimes made chaplets for the head, and wore them in 
their sports; hence the phrases, "Kiss under the rose," 
"Whisper under the mistletoe," etc. In old Church-cal- 
endars, Christmas-eve is marked with a Latin phrase 
which means "adorn the temples." From this we get the 
custom of decorating our churches. 

Tenth Child. Can you tell us any other traditions or 
customs about Christmas? 

An8. Yes ; but perhaps I have now told you more than 
you will remember. In England there was the custom of 
burning the yule-log, or Christmas-block, and eating the 
soused boars-head. They made a glowing fire of large 
logs, the principal of which was the yule-log. This fire 
was kept up for days and nights, during which they en- 
gaged in all kinds of merry-making, music, dances, riddles, 
conjuring, fortune-telling, forfeits, and feasting. The first 
dish on Christmas-day was a soused boar's-head, which 
was borne to the table with great pomp and solemnity 
"upon a silver platter, with minstralsye." They have a 
tradition that this custom commemorates the valor of a 



180 The CJ/lId in the Midst; 

student of Queen's College, Oxford, ^vlio while walking 
one day and reading Aristotle was suddenly attacked by a 
furious wild-boar; he rammed the book down the throat 
of the beast with such vigor as to choke him to death, all 
the time crying, " Graecum estl^^ They also had a super- 
stition that on Christmas-eve the oxen all got down on 
their knees, as in devotion, at midnight. Many a time, 
when a boy, have I gone out early Christmas morning to 
see the mud on their knees. But enough. 

After another song, the school was dismissed 
for refreshments. This service may be abbre- 
viated, interspersed with songs, and followed 
by an address, as the school may desire. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Eastee Suxday and Sebvice. 

Easter is the festival of the resurrection. It 
is sometimes called the Christian passover. 
As Christmas commemorates the nativity of 
Christ, so Easter commemorates the resurrec- 
tion of Christ. The English name Easter, and 
the German ostern were, perhaps, derived 
from ostcn-a, or Astcoie, a Teutonic goddess of 
spring, in honor of whom the ancient Saxons 
offered sacrifices about the time of the Jewish 
passover. Easter was a movable feast, and 



Oi% The Siindafj'School of To-day. 181 

occasioned great wranglings in the early 
Church as to the precise time when it should 
be observed, until the Council of Nice, A.D. 
325, ordained that it should be kept every- 
where on the Sunday next after the full moon 
that came on or immediately after the vernal 
equinox, except Avhen the moon fulled on Sun- 
day, when Easter should be on the next Sun- 
day, so that it could not be coincident with the 
passover. By this arrangement Easter may 
come as early as March 22, and as late as 
April 25. 

In the early Church, Easter was observed 
as a joyous festival, in which the children 
took a conspicuous part. Catechumens were 
dressed in white, and after taking a prescribed 
part in the Easter service they were solemnly 
baptized, after which the Lord's Supper was 
administered, alms were liberally distribut- 
ed, and in many other ways they made Easter 
a memorable occasion. It was called "the 
queen of festivals." The primitive Christians 
very early on Easter-morning saluted each 
other with the words, " Christ is risen," and 
responded, J' The Lord is risen indeed, and 
hath appeared to Simon." The Greek Church 
still retains this custom in many places, to 



182 The Child in the Midst; 

wliicli if we add the English cnstom of making 
presents of colored eggs, we have a good yiew 
of this Easter festival in early times. Colored 
eggs were used by children in a sort of game, 
in which they tested the strength of the egg- 
shells. In some parts of Ireland they have a 
legend that the sun dances in the sky on Easter 
Snnday morning, and in some places they still 
keep up the custom of haying a spirited game 
of ball by twelye old women. In some of the 
northern counties of England, on Easter Sun- 
day the men parade the streets, and claim the 
privilege of lifting every woman they find from 
the ground three times, receiving in payment 
a kiss, or a silver sixpence. The next day the 
women take their turn, lifting the men in the 
same way. They had a horrible custom in 
France of stoning the Jews on Easter Sunday, 
and sometimes they considered this Easter 
festival incomplete unless they had stoned 
some Jew to death. It got to be a common 
thing in some x^arts of England for the boys 
to run about the streets on Easter morning 
crying with loud voices, 

Christ is risen, Christ is risen, 
All the Jews must go to prison. 

Roman Catholic and other ritualistic Churches 



Or, Tlie Sundaij-school of To-daij. 183 

celebrate Easter now with elaborate Churcli- 
service and extravagant floral decorations. 
The traditional white lily, which so long 
adorned the altars of Papists and Protestants 
as a beautiful emblem of the resurrection, has 
invited and encouraged an extravagant display 
of flowers on Easter occasions which is sug- 
gestive of an excess of religious symbolism 
foreign to the simplicity . and spirituality of 
divine worship in Methodist Churches. It is 
claimed that the Greeks exhausted the wor- 
ship of beauty in religious symbolism, and that 
the Eomish Church has appropriated all the 
Christian festivals, therefore the observance 
of these festivals by us, especially with floral 
decorations, is an aping of ritualism and High- 
churchism, which many cannot tolerate ; but as 
long as the use of flowers at weddings and funer- 
als, and their suggestive association with chil- 
dren anywhere and everywhere, is so universal, 
the decoration of Sunday-school rooms with 
flowers at any time cannot be inappropriate. 
Let the Sunday-school room be appropriately 
but not extravagantly decorated for Easter; 
have at least one white lily on the altar of the 
Church. Sing an Easter-song, and preach a 
sermon on the resurrection. This much can 



18i Tite Child in the Muht; 

be done without encouraging ritualism, or 
sanctioning Eomanisrn, 

The following form of service for Easter 
may be easily and x^rofitably used in our Sun- 
day-schools : 

EASTEE SEEYICE. 

The lesson for Easter Sunday sliould always be "The 
Resurrection of Christ"' — Matt, xxviii. 1-10; Mark xvi. 
1-14; Luke xxiv. 1-34; John xx. 1-lS. or John xxi. 1-19. 

1. Song, the school standing. 

2. Opening responsive exercise. 

S"pt. come, let us worsliip and bow down : let tis 
kneel before tlie Lord our maker. (Ps. xcv. 6.) 

School. For he is our Gud : and we are the people of his 
pasture; and the sheep of liis hand. ( Ps. xcv. 7.) 

Supt. Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion. (Ps. 
Ixv. 1.) 

School. O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice 
of his praise to be heard, i Ps. Ixvi. 8.) 

Supt. Enter into his gates with th.anksgiving. and into 
his courts vrith praise. ( Ps. c. 4. i 

School. Let us come before Jiis presence with thanksgiv- 
ing, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. i^Ps. 
xcv. 2. ) 

Supt. For the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared 
to Simon. (Luke xxiv. 34.) 

School. Xow is Christ risen from the dead, and become 
the first-fruits of them tliat sle])t. (1 Cor. xv. 20.) 

3. Prayer, all repeating the Lord's Prayer. 

4. Song. 

5. Leading the lesson in ahernate verses. 



Or, The Sunday-school of To-dcoj, 185 

6. Song. 

7. A short address, or sermon, on tlie resurrection. 

8. Prayer. 

9. Song. 

10. The Apostles' Creed repeated in concert. . 

11. Benediction. 

Any part of this service may be omitted, al- 
tered, or added to, according to tlie wishes of 
any schooL If the responses are written and 
given out to the school beforehand, this whole 
service may be performed by any school with 
bnt one book, to be used by the superintendent 
or pastor, while the regular lesson can be read 
out of the New Testament. 

"Now the God of peace, that brought again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of 
the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in 
every good work to do his will, working in 
you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, 
through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for- 
ever and ever. Amen." 



THE END. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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